Health Insurance Doctor 9781400877683

Table of contents :
Foreword
CONTENTS
PART I: GREAT BRITAIN
Chapter I. Summary of the British Health Insurance Scheme
Chapter II. Health Insurance Medical Benefit
Medical Treatment
Chapter III. The Health Insurance Doctor
Additions and Removals by the Insurance Committee
Own Arrangements
Additional Treatment Benefits
Statistics
Chapter IV. Remuneration of Health Insurance Doctors
The General Medical Pool
Mileage Fund
The Practitioner's Drugs Account
Collective "Own Arrangements"
Individual "Own Arrangers"
The "Manchester System" of Payment
Chapter V. The Work Involved in Health Insurance Practice
Medical Work
Paper Work: Certification
Records of Illness
Tuberculosis Cases
Chapter VI. The Regional Medical Staff
Chapter VII. Medical Attitude Toward Certification Responsibilities
Chapter VIII. Disciplinary Procedure Affecting the Health Insurance Doctor
Determination of Penalties
Exclusion from Insurance Practice
Chapter IX. Attitude of the British Medical Association and Panel Doctors
The Part Played by the British Medical Association
Why the Panel Doctors Approve of Their Health Insurance Arrangements
Extensions of Health Insurance Recommended by the British Medical Association
Chapter X. Hospitals and the Health Insurance Program
Chapter XI. Some Alternatives to the Health Insurance Service Sponsored by Minority Medical Opinion
PART II: DENMARK
Chapter XII. Summary of the Danish Health Insurance Scheme
Chapter XIII. Health Insurance Medical Benefit
Chapter XIV. The Health Insurance Doctor in Copenhagen
The Copenhagen Area
Remuneration in Copenhagen
Collective Contract II
Chapter XV. The Health Insurance Doctor in Non-Metropolitan Denmark
In General
In Jutland
Remuneration (Jutland Contract)
Chapter XVI. Paper Work Involved in Danish Health Insurance Practice
Chapter XVII. Disciplinary Control of the Physician
Copenhagen
Non-Metropolitan Denmark
Chapter XVIII. Attitude of the Medical Profession
Attitude Toward Certification Responsibilities
Why the Profession Approves Its HealthInsuranceArrangements
Proposed Extensions of Health Insurance Service
PART III: FRANCE
Chapter XIX. Summary of French Health Insurance Scheme
Revised French Health Insurance Law
Chapter XX. Health Insurance Medical Benefit
Procedure Required in Obtaining Benefits
Dental Benefit
Maternity Benefit
Duration of Benefit
Medical Assistance Cases
Additional Benefits
Chapter XXI. The "Ticket Moderateur "
Chapter XXII. The Growth of the Dispensary and the Mutualist "Clinique"
Chapter XXIII. Responsibilities of the French Health Insurance Doctor
Attitude Toward Certification Responsibilities
Chapter XXIV. "Controle Medical"
Chapter XXV. "Controle Technique"
Chapter XXVI. Examples of Special Local Schemes Prompted by the Social Insurance Law
Coordination at Nancy
Municipal Dispensary at Villejuif
The Surgical Mutual Insurance Fund at Lyons
Chapter XXVII. Attitude of the French Medical Profession
Postlude
Index

Citation preview

THE HEALTH INSURANCE DOCTOR

LONDON: OXFORD

HUMPHREY UNIVERSITY

MILFORD PRESS

THE

HEALTH INSURANCE DOCTOR HIS ROLE IN GREAT BRITAIN · DENMARK AND FRANCE By BARBARA N. ARMSTRONG

PRINCETON PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

1939

COPYRIGHT, I939 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS FIRST EDITION

SET UP AND PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS AT PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

ro IAN ALASTAIR ARMSTRONG

FOREWORD ITH the recent social security development in the United States has come widespread interest in health insurance. No longer just the student and the social worker, but also the legislator, the administrator, and the public at large participate in health insurance dis­ cussion. Needless to say, the doctor has a special stake in such discussion. In fact, controversy regarding health insurance tends to center about the doctor's position in the scheme. On this position rests the insured worker's protection and the government's hope of workable machinery, as well as the practitioner's assurance of a satisfactory professional life. Basic information about the situation of the health insurance doctor abroad therefore seems timely. The study of which this book is the product rests on a foundation of twenty years of research and university teach­ ing in the social insurance field. The study itself embodied a first-hand investigation made between May and November 1936 in Great Britain, Denmark, and France. The facts were gathered with the aid and cooperation of both the govern­ ment and the organized medical profession in each of the three countries. Representative non-organization physicians were also interviewed. The British survey included London, Manchester, and Bir­ mingham, and also representative provincial areas (Devon, Buckingham, Derbyshire, Warwickshire, Nottingham, and the long-depressed areas of Cumberland and Durham). In Denmark both Copenhagen and also Aarhus in Jutland were visited. In France work in Nancy, in Lyons, and in a typical rural area (centering in the village of Melun) supplemented extensive inquiries in Paris. In addition to the lay directors, managers, and secretaries of the bodies administering health insurance, sixty-seven doctors were interviewed. They in-

Vlll

Foreword

eluded not only medical men engaged in health insurance practice (both general practitioners and specialists) and ex­ ecutives of the organized medical profession, but also the health insurance medical administrative officers and a num­ ber of distinguished doctors in the medical schools. Britain, Denmark, and France were selected advisedly. They are democratic countries and their experience is of special interest in America. They present contrasting health insurance histories and contrasting methods of organization of health insurance medical service. For the reader who is unfamiliar with health insurance, a brief outline of the entire health insurance scheme precedes the text proper on the health insurance doctor in each of the three countries discussed.

CONTENTS Foreword

vii PART I: GREAT BRITAIN

Chapter Chapter Chapter

I. Summary of the British Health In­ surance Scheme II. Health Insurance Medical Benefit Medical Treatment III. The Health Insurance Doctor

Additions and Removals by the Insurance Committee "Own Arrangements" Additional Treatment Benefits Statistics Chapter

Chapter

Chapter

IV. Remuneration of Health Insurance Doctors The General Medical Pool Mileage Fund The Practitioner's Drugs Account Collective "Own Arrangements" Individual "Own Arrangers" The "Manchester System" of Payment V. The Work Involved in Health In­ surance Practice Medical Work Paper Work: Certification "Records of Illness" Tuberculosis Cases VI. The Regional Medical Staff

3 IO IO 17 23 28 3° 31 32 34 36 38 38 39 41

46 46 48 51 52 53

Contents

VII. Medical Attitude Toward Certifica­ tion Responsibilities VIII. Disciplinary Procedure Affecting the Health Insurance Doctor Determination of Penalties Exclusion from Insurance Prac­ tice IX. Attitude of the British Medical Association and Panel Doctors The Part Played by the British Medical Association Why the Panel Doctors Approve of Their Health Insurance Ar­ rangements Extensions of Health Insurance Recommended by the British Medical Association

58 62 7° 7° 75 75

78

83

X. Hospitals and the Health Insurance Program

88

XI. Some Alternatives to the Health Insurance Service Sponsored by Minority Medical Opinion

95

PART II: DENMARK

XII. Summary of the Danish Health In­ surance Scheme XIII. Health Insurance Medical Benefit XIV. The Health Insurance Doctor in Copenhagen The Copenhagen Area Remuneration in Copenhagen Collective Contract II

ΙΟΙ III II9

Ι20 129 135

Contents XV. The Health Insurance Doctor in Non-Metropolitan Denmark In General In Jutland Remuneration (Jutland Contract) Chapter XVI. Paper Work Involved in Danish Health Insurance Practice Chapter XVII. Disciplinary Control of the Phy­ sician Copenhagen Non-Metropolitan Denmark Chapter XVIII. Attitude of the Medical Profession Attitude Toward Certification Responsibilities Why the Profession Approves Its HealthInsuranceArrangements Proposed Extensions of Health Insurance Service

xi

Chapter

139 139 142 144 147 150 150 152 157 157 158 161

PART III: FRANCE

Chapter

Chapter

Chapter

XIX. Summary of French Health Insur­ ance Scheme Revised French Health Insurance Law XX. Health Insurance Medical Benefit Procedure Required in Obtaining Benefits Dental Benefit Maternity Benefit Duration of Benefit Medical Assistance Cases Additional Benefits XXI. The "Ticket Moderateur"

165 166 173 186 190 191 194 195 195 199

xii

Contents

Chapter XXII. The Growth of the Dispensary and the Mutualist "Clinique" Chapter XXIII. Responsibilities of the French Health Insurance Doctor Attitude Toward Certification Responsibilities Chapter XXIV. "Controle Medical"

211

Chapter

225

XXV. "Controle Technique"

207

214 215

Chapter XXVI. Examples of Special Local Schemes Prompted by the Social Insur­ ance Law "Coordination" at Nancy Municipal Dispensary at Villejuif The Surgical Mutual Insurance Fund at Lyons Chapter XXVII. Attitude of the French Medical Profession Postlude

248 252

Index

259

236 236 242 243

PART I: GREAT BRITAIN

SUMMARY OF THE BRITISH HEALTH INSURANCE SCHEME

T

HE doctor's all-important role in a health insurance system is better understood if predicated upon ac­ quaintance with the general outline of the scheme itself. The following summary will furnish this outline for readers who are not already familiar with it. The British Health and Invalidity Insurance system went into operation in 1912.1 The compulsory provisions of the original act2 covered manual wage earners without regard to earnings and non-manual employees whose salaries did not exceed £160 ($800) per annum. British wage levels were such that this covered most of the white-collar workers. A few groups of wage earners who were not dependent upon insurable work or whose employment provided benefits equal to those of the insurance scheme were entitled to exemp­ tion from the obligations of the act. Certain government workers were excepted. In restricting compulsory insurance to employees and ex­ cluding self-employed workers, the British act followed the usual social insurance pattern which had been developed by Continental Europe. This restriction and exclusion rested on a purely administrative base. Obviously the cobbler, small shopkeeper, or bootblack needs social insurance protection just as much as the wage earner. The wage earner, however, can be reached through his employer, who is relatively acces­ sible to the government, whereas collection from the self1 Variations were made relative to medical benefits in Ireland and administrative arrangements in Scotland. The scheme here described is that set up in England and Wales. 2 (Stat, of 1911) ι and 2 Geo. V, ch. 53.

4

The Health. Insurance Doctor

employed worker involves all the administrative problems of the poll tax. The British act permitted (through voluntary insurance), but did not at this time try to compel, any of such workers to insure. Employers, as well as their insured employees, were re­ quired to pay contributions for the support of the scheme. The Exchequer also met a part of the cost. The three con­ tributing sources divided the burden according to the follow­ ing ratios: Males: Insured 4, Employer 3, Exchequer 2 Females: Insured 3, Employer 3, Exchequer 2 A sliding scale increased the employer's and decreased the worker's share in the lower wage groups. Employers paying less than a specified minimum were required to pay the entire workers' share as well as their own, and employers of "ex­ empt" workers were required to contribute at the usual em­ ployer's rate. The latter provision was included to prevent employers from deriving any advantage from the hiring of "exempt" workers. The employer was made a collecting agency for the Gov­ ernment. He paid both his own and his employees' share of the premium by purchasing insurance stamps which were placed in an Insurance Book for each worker. He reimbursed himself by holding back from the pay envelope the amount due him for each worker's share. The funds brought into the national treasury by the sale of the insurance stamps each year, supplemented by the Ex­ chequer grants, were used to finance the insurance benefits. These were of two types, cash and medical, and they were administered in different ways. The cash benefits, in response to demands made by the great network of fraternal organizations ("Friendly So­ cieties") which had been providing medical service and small cash benefits during illness, were obtainable by joining an Approved Society exclusively devoted to the administra­ tion of insurance cash benefits. To be "approved" a society

His Role in Great Britain

5

had to be non-profit, self-governing, guarantee the standard benefits payable under the insurance act, and not reject ap­ plicants on account of age. If it had fewer than five thousand members, it was required to form a "central pooling fund" with other societies for their mutual protection. Friendly Societies were permitted to organize compulsory insurance sections into "approved" organizations. The costs of both the benefits paid out and of their administration by the Ap­ proved Society were financed by a yearly allotment from the Insurance Funds for each insured member. Persons who either did not or could not join an Approved Society became "deposit contributors." The amount due for each of the contributors paid by the worker, his employer, and the Exchequer, became an individual credit at the post office on which, after an annual deduction to pay for the medical benefit, the deposit contributor could draw for sick­ ness and invalidity benefit until the account was exhausted. One of the results of the Approved Society system was that many pseudo-fraternal orders were organized as annexes and "feeders" to the Prudential, the Metropolitan, and other big industrial life insurance companies (i.e. purveyors of "funeral insurance" policies). In the course of time, these organiza­ tions became the carriers of a larger proportion of the insured workers than were served by bona fide fraternal societies. In deference to the violent opposition of the organized medical profession to any contractual relationship with the Friendly Societies, medical benefit3 was separately admin­ istered by specially created local committees (the "Insurance Committees") representative of the workers, the doctors, and the "public." An Insurance Committee was set up by the National Health Insurance Commissioners for each in­ surance area, i.e. each county and county borough. The com­ mittee received an annual allotment from the Insurance 3 Medical benefit is given in case of industrial injury as well as on non-industrial injury and sickness. The Workmen's Compensation Act provides only cash benefits. See p. Ii infra.

6

The Health Insurance Doctor

Funds for each insured person resident in the area, and was obligated to provide and pay for the insurance scheme's medical benefit. The doctor was obligated to give the insured worker who was too ill to work a certificate of incapacity, which the worker used in making his claim for cash benefits from his Approved Society. The society, however, had no direct relations with the doctor nor any control over him. His actual contacts were with the Insurance Committee. The British act was the first health insurance measure to throw insurance practice open to the whole medical profes­ sion and to allow free choice of doctor by the insured patient. The cash benefits included (i) "sickness benefit" granted, after a three-day waiting period, up to twenty-six weeks of continuous incapacity;4 (2) "disablement benefit" (half the amount of sickness benefit), an invalidity pension payable without time limit for incapacity that continued beyond the maximum duration of sickness benefit; (3) "maternity benefit," a lump sum payable on the confinement of either an insured woman or the wife of an insured man. Both contribu­ tions and cash benefits were set at flat figures that did not vary, as did the continental health insurance schemes, with the wages earned by the worker. Variations were made ac­ cording to sex, and lower rates were set for "young people" considered as still in the learning period. "Qualifying periods of insurance" were set for each type of benefit except medical benefit. Medical benefit was available only to the insured man or woman, not to the dependent family. A certain amount of "arrears" resulting from unemploy­ ment (an average of four weeks a year) was considered nor­ mal and caused no reduction in benefit. Arrears in excess of this amount caused a gradual loss of benefit, taking the form of successive reductions and final cessation of cash benefit, and, last of all, deprivation of medical benefit. 4 Incapacity, whether or not from the same disease, is deemed a "continuation" of previous incapacity unless at least a year has elapsed since the previous incapacity.

His Role in Great Britain

7

There has been little real change in the health insurance scheme during the twenty-five years of its existence. The in­ come figure set for determining the eligible white-collar em­ ployees was raised in 1919 from £160 ($800) to £250 ($1,250), in order to keep pace with the rise in wages and prices. It has stayed at that figure. In 1935 there were approximately 15,500,000 insured per­ sons and 734 centralized societies administering health in­ surance in England. In addition, there were twenty-five Affiliated Orders with just over five thousand branches. Since 1918 the right to participate voluntarily in the in­ surance scheme has been restricted generally to persons5 who were formerly compulsorily insured and, through change of employment or for other reason, have moved out of this insured group. Compulsory insurance was extended in 1929 to several groups of self-employed manual workers who were technically "independent contractors" rather than em­ ployees. Persons for whom they performed services were made to serve as employers for purposes of the act. Since 1929 there has been a governmentally organized insurance carrier for deposit contributors who have been unable, because of bad health, to secure membership in an Approved Society. This "deposit contributors insurance sec­ tion" functions like an Approved Society. On the institution of old-age insurance in 1924, sickness and disablement benefits were made terminable at the age of sixty-five when the old-age pension became payable. Pen­ sioners remain eligible for medical benefit all their lives. Sanatorium benefit, a special service for the tubercular originally part of the regular medical benefit, has not been administered as a health insurance benefit since 1920. In­ stead, it has been assimilated in a comprehensive program for the treatment of tuberculosis administered by the County Councils and supported by both national and local taxes. 5 There are a few exceptions. See National Health Insurance Act, 1936, 26 Geo. V and ι Edw. VIII, ch. 32, sec. 3 (2), (3), (4).

8

The Health Insurance Doctor

In July 1919 the administration of health insurance was made one of the duties of the newly created Ministry of Health. The special government agency (the National Health Insurance Commissioners) set up by the original enactment was dispensed with. A "Medical Referee" supervisory service was set up in 1920 and has been perfected in the in­ terim. The contribution and benefit amounts have been revised from time to time. The shares of the employer and worker are identical in the case of male labor. The share of the em­ ployer is a little more than the worker's in the case of female labor. The ratio of the government grant to the total normal income has been substantially reduced. The required annual government grant, which before 1925 amounted to twoninths of the cost of the insurance of male workers and onefourth of the cost of the insurance of females, is now only one-seventh and one-fifth of the respective amounts. The qualifying periods have been revised and are now as follows: Contributions during a half-year for sickness benefit at a reduced rate; two years for full sickness benefit and for disablement benefit; contributions during ten and a half months for maternity benefit. Medical benefit is available, as it always has been, immediately on insurance. Arrears provisions were liberalized repeatedly. And almost continuously from 1920 on, special Exchequer grants were made to protect the health insurance rights of workers who, through prolonged unemployment caused by the depression following the World War, fell into penalized arrears. Special legislation kept reduced cash benefits available during most of this period, even in the "depressed" areas where wide­ spread unemployment had endured for many years. Medical benefit rights have been preserved practically without inter­ ruption. The excusing of arrears resulting from bona fide unemployment now has been made a permanent part of the health insurance scheme, thus assuring the continuity of protection during all phases of future business cycles.

His Role in Great Britain

9

This maintenance of health insurance benefits has been the most conspicuous post-war health insurance service. It has meant health and economic protection to the unemployed worker, an important contribution to the public health in England. It also has saved the medical profession from the serious loss of income that bad times traditionally have brought the professional man. Government checks have gone regularly to the British health insurance doctors year in and year out. The post-war industrial adjustments which Britain had to face caused not only general depression for an un­ usually long period, but also a complete cessation of economic activity in certain of the mining regions. The latter condition has persisted even in the face of general economic revival. In consequence, the protection of medical benefit has been of special importance to the English physicians, as well as to the insured workers. The cash benefits (sickness benefit and disablement benefit) still are conspicuously low as compared with unem­ ployment insurance benefit.6 This low level of cash benefit has been tolerated largely because supplementary amounts are commonly provided by the societies as "additional benefit," a good talking point in membership drives. More than 70 per cent of the insured workers belong to societies that provide supplementary cash benefits. Almost as many are also en­ titled to substantial additions to the ordinary services of medical benefit. 6 Thus: Weekly Sickness Benefit Weekly Disablement Benefit (with no family allowances)

Males 15s. ($3.75) 7s.6d. ($1.87)

Females 12s. (10s. if married) 6s. (5s. if married)

Unemployment insurance benefit is: Males 17s. plus family allowance of 3s. per dependent child and 9s. for dependent wife or other person in charge of the children. Females 15s. (Agricultural unemployment insurance benefit, however, is only 14s. for males and 12s. for females, plus smaller family benefits.)

HEALTH INSURANCE MEDICAL BENEFIT

M

EDICAL benefit under the British health insurance scheme affords the insured worker treatment by a "family doctor" or general practitioner and such drugs or medicaments as the doctor may prescribe. These benefits are completely financed by the insurance funds. No contribution toward the cost of the drugs is exacted from the patient.1 No extra payment of the doctor by the worker for insured treatment is allowed, although if the doctor performs additional non-insured medical service, this must be paid for as the doctor and patient may arrange. Medical Treatment Just what is included in the insured medical service?2 The rule laid down in the Medical Benefit Regulations requires, with one exception, that the practitioner give his insured patients "all proper and necessary medical services other than those involving the application of special skill and ex­ perience of a degree or kind which general practitioners as a class cannot reasonably be expected to possess . . . regard being had to what services are usually undertaken by prac­ titioners in the locality." The exception is related to confinement cases. Attendance during or within ten days after labor is not part of the in1 The patient must furnish a bottle or container or else pay a small sum as deposit for the container. To this end, therefore, money is often passed over the counter by the insured worker at the druggist's. In "easy" times, moreover, the less thrifty workers frequently make small purchases of drugs or such goods as adhesive tape, medicine droppers, etc., rather than bother to go to the doctor for a prescription. 2 See pp. Jpf. for discussion of "additional benefit" schemes.

His Role in Great Britain

11

sured service.3 Instead, a special cash maternity benefit is provided, supposedly enabling the patient to pay either a doctor or a midwife as she desires. Antenatal examinations, however, and medical supervision of the insured woman during her pregnancy periods are part of the health insurance doctor's obligations. The doctor is obligated to treat industrial injuries as well as non-industrial accidents and illness.4 The service obligations of the insurance doctor are stated, as has been said, in most general terms. Whether or not a particular operation or service falls within the insured ser­ vice has caused frequent disputes. The burden of proof rests wholly with the doctor who contends that a particular dis­ puted service is beyond his insurance obligations. If he has already performed the service, moreover, and the dispute arises over the question of extra payment, the doctor has very specific obligations of proof. The rule provides that per­ formed service shall be deemed within the insurance obliga­ tions, unless the physician can show either special experience or special reputation among fellow medical men in this field.5 The administering of anesthetics or other assistance at an operation on one of the doctor's patients, even when the operation is itself deemed a specialist service, is an insurance obligation, unless only a specialist could properly so assist. Preventive treatment, such as vaccination for smallpox, inoculation against diphtheria, typhoid, or other disease, is 3 Benefit is paid on confinement of the wife of an insured man, and double benefit on confinement of the insured woman. See p. 6 supra. The distinction between a con­ finement case and abortion is drawn as follows: If there have been twenty-eight weeks of pregnancy, it is classed as confinement, whether or not the child is born alive. If the pregnancy has lasted less than twenty-eight weeks, it is classed as an abortion unless a living child is delivered, in which case, of course, it is a confinement. Attendance at abortion is, of course, required as part of the practitioner's insurance duties. 4The doctor gets a special fee from non-insurance funds for emergency treatment of insured persons (not his own patients) who are hurt in traffic accidents. See Chap, HI, η. 16. 5 He must establish either that he has had extra training at a hospital or with some other appointed institution plus recent experience in the contested work or else that the doctors in his area regard him as having developed a special proficiency beyond that of the usual practitioner.

12

The Health Insurance Doctor

in no way distinguished from curative treatment. Whatever the doctor would do for a private patient, he is obligated to do for his insured patients. The practitioner's duty to provide needed medical treat­ ment is not limited in any way by the fact that the patient has brought on the condition by his own negligence or mis­ conduct. Refusal by the patient to submit to surgery or to undergo inoculation which his doctor deems necessary does not suspend medical benefit or bring other penalty to the insured, except in the case of refusal, deemed unreasonable by the society, of very minor surgical operations ordered by the practitioner.6 Post-mortem examination of an insured person is not re­ quired and, if asked for, may be charged for on a private fee basis.7 This does not mean, however, that a fee may be charged because the patient dies before the arrival of the doctor. It is of course impossible to state exactly in administrative regulations the amount of visitation expected of an insurance practitioner in the case of chronic, long-enduring disabilities for which little or nothing ordinarily can be done. It is made clear, however, that fairly frequent supervisory visitation is required in such cases to check for possible complications that may be at least relieved by the physician. Under the general rule defining the doctor's insurance obligations, local custom is important. More is expected of a country doctor, for the simple reason that he has learned to do more, because of his remoteness from hospitals and specialists. And what most general practitioners in the area can do is what is included in the insurance service obligations. Whether extraction of teeth is a rural medical practi6 Whether refusal is unreasonable is decided on appeal by the Minister of Health if the insured challenges his society's decision, cf. Danish rules in these respects, pp. 116^. 7 A death certificate must be issued, however, as part of the insurance duties. See P- 49-

His Role in Great Britain

13

doner's obligation is a moot question in England and Wales.8 The central administrative authorities maintain that there is nothing in the act or regulations issued thereunder that ex­ cludes such service. Accordingly, they maintain that a rural doctor who extracts teeth for private patients could not with propriety charge an insured patient for such service. Further, they contend that he should perform it at least when no dental service is reasonably available. The insurance prac­ titioners insist that they do not accept this view, but they have not formally contested it. The fact that a special "dental benefit" is largely available as an additional benefit9 (voluntarily granted by the societies) probably accounts for the fact that the question has not been actually litigated. It is conceded by the medical group that such disability as hemorrhage of the gums is clearly entitled to treatment by the health insurance doctor when dental assistance is not available in the environs. Disputes over the limits of general practitioner service are referred in the first instance to a county administrative com­ mittee of doctors, the Medical Committee, chosen by vote of all the doctors in the area, including non-insurance as well as insurance doctors. This committee reports to the County Insurance Committee, which includes doctors, administra­ tive officials, and representatives of the insured workers. Should the Insurance Committee disagree with the Medical Committee, the matter goes for final decision to three referees appointed by the Minister of Health.10 Two of these referees must be doctors, the third a lawyer in active practice. Thus the limits of the insured service have been defined largely by medical men. 8 In Scotland it has been formally decided, on contest, by referees that extraction of teeth is outside the scope of medical benefits. See Harris and Sack, Medical Insurance Practice (4th ed., 1937), British Medical Association, London, p. 62. 9 See pp. 30/. 10 The Minister may send the case to the referees even when the two local committees agree.

14

The Health Insurance Doctor

The right to free drugs, which is a part of the medical benefit, is placed for administration primarily in the hands of the attending doctor. The cost of the drug which he deems necessary to the treatment of the condition of his patient is irrelevant: the patient's need, and not the costof the material, determines the range of the drug benefit.11 The doctor must not, however, prescribe an expensive medicine if a less costly and equally efficacious one is available. He may not cater unduly to the palates of his patients by ordering excessive amounts of "tasty" flavoring matter.12 Drugs that are immediately necessary and cannot wait the filling of a prescription must be dispensed by the doctor. He may also dispense the drugs which ordinarily are adminis­ tered by him personally. He is reimbursed for these (and compensated for the dispensing) by the insurance funds. Country doctors more than a mile from a drug store may furnish all drugs, instead of merely prescribing them; they must do so if the Insurance Committee finds that the insured patients have no other reasonable means of obtaining them. Occasionally disputes arise over borderline commodities, which may be deemed food, beverages, disinfectants, or toilet preparations, instead of drugs.13 For instance, certain pre­ scriptions for concentrated milk products used for their protein content in anemia cases were challenged by a druggist on the ground that they were food rather than medicine. The Insurance Committee, after consultation with a Medical 11 The drugs are, of course, limited to medicines required in connection with medical treatment which is provided under the insurance act. Patent medicines are not absolutely interdicted but the burden of proof is on the doctor who prescribes them to show that they have therapeutic value which cannot be obtained by non-proprietary remedies. That the patient prefers the proprietary article is not accepted as such proof. 12 See pp. 6for further discussion and for description of procedure in cases of alleged over-prescribing, i.e. prescribing unnecessary or unnecessarily expensive drugs. 13 The Advisory Medical Committee published a report in 1929 (with later addendum) for the guidance of practitioners. This lists substances in three classifications: 1. Never a Drug. 2. Always a Drug. 3. Sometimes a Drug. General rules are appended to aid the doctor. See Appendix 17 of Harris and Sack, Medical Insurance Practice, for useful extracts from this report.

His Role in Great Britain

15

Committee representing insurance doctors in the area, agreed with the druggist. The dispute ultimately was resolved, as are all such disputes, by appeal to the Minister of Health, who in this instance held with the prescribing doctor that the compound was within the drug benefit. In addition to medicine proper, certain chemical reagents (such as Fehling or Benedict Solutions for regulating diabetic treatment) are included, as are the appliances listed in the Official Regulations. The list includes the things ordinarily needed in carrying on treatment supervised by a general practitioner, such as bandages of all varieties, adhesive and other types of plaster, syringes, hypodermic needles, drop­ pers, lints, ice bags, surgical jackets, splints, and similar commodities.14 Included in the obligations of the insurance doctor is the furnishing of certificates of incapacity and capacity. These certificates guide the organizations that furnish the cash benefit to which health insurance entitles the worker when illness disables him for work. It is stressed in Britain that this certification duty is part of the physician's treatment obliga­ tions and not an addition to them. The British Medical Association, as well as the medical administrators of the in­ surance scheme, point out that a sick man does not get well by drugs alone. They stress the fact that food and shelter for him and the peace of mind that comes from knowledge that his family have their maintenance secured are important elements in his recovery. The cash benefit, they maintain, is a vital part of treatment itself. In turn, the attending doc­ tor's certification, which enables the worker to get his cash benefit, they deem a normal obligation of the doctor, com­ parable to his duty of prescribing the free drugs which are part of medical benefit. "Certification is a part of treatment" is a cornerstone in the British health insurance scheme. 14See Great Britain Statutory Rules and Orders, 1936, no. 141 J, 2nd schedule, for current list of appliances, etc., supplied as part of medical benefit.

ιό

The Health Insurance Doctor

In addition to treatment obligations, the insurance doctor must advise and direct a patient who needs specialist services. If the services needed are provided by the public authorities, he must take all reasonable active steps to enable his patient to obtain them.

Ill THE HEALTH INSURANCE DOCTOR

T

O be a health insurance doctor in Britain a practi­ tioner must be willing to work on the terms offered under the health insurance act. In addition, he must, like any doctor in "private practice," attract patients who wish to have him for their doctor. Any man or woman "on the medical register," i.e. ad­ mitted to practice, may put his name on the county "panel." This is the list of medical men who offer their services as health insurance doctors. If a doctor practises in more than one insurance area, he of course joins more than one panel. The insured worker may choose any doctor on the local panel and, if the patient is acceptable to the doctor, the worker's name is put on the doctor's medical list. Obviously, these medical lists are not lists of actual patients in the sense of sick people needing medical attention. They represent merely potential patients who look to the doctor in question for medical service if and when they need it.1 The worker receives a medical card (with an identification cipher) from his Insurance Committee, i.e. the local ad­ ministrative body. He chooses a doctor by presenting his medical card to a practitioner whose name is on the panel. If the doctor accepts him, he signs the medical card and sends it to the Insurance Committee. The committee puts the worker's name on the doctor's list and returns the medical card to the worker.2 If the doctor wishes to reject a worker

1 Staff physicians of hospitals, asylums, etc., are permitted by the Insurance Com­ mittees to serve as insurance doctors for the employees of the institution only. The lists of such doctors are called "limited lists." 2 A medical index register of workers eligible to medical benefit is kept by each Insurance Committee and the Committees clear through a Central Index Register, which keeps the Committees informed of the state of each worker's contribution record.

ι8

The Health Insurance Doctor

who has chosen him, he is free to do so. He must, however, give him any treatment of which he stands in immediate need. In addition, he must direct him to other doctors in the neighborhood to whom he may apply and also notify the committee that he has rejected the applicant. The insured person who wishes to change his doctor may, with the consent of the practitioners involved, do so at any time. Even without such consent, the worker may change four times a year—at the beginning of each quarter. He must, however, give a month's notice of his intention to make such change, i.e. a change without acquiescence of the doctor from whose list he is removing himself. The doctor who has accepted an insured worker has in turn the right to make a subsequent change. With the con­ sent of the patient and another doctor, he may remove the worker's name from his list at any time and have him trans­ ferred. Even without the consent of his patient, he may do so on fourteen days' notice. The name is stricken off before that time if accepted on the list of another doctor. The experience of representative areas may serve to illus­ trate the extent of "changes" of doctor under the health in­ surance scheme. A negligible number are transferred at the request of the practitioner. Even in the areas with several hundred thousand insured, only ten to twenty per year are removed from one list to another by notice from the doctor. In quoting material, it must be borne in mind that the statistics kept by most insurance committees of "changes of doctor at the patient's request" are not properly comparable. Some counties segregate changes made because of removal from the doctor's neighborhood, while others lump together such changes with those made because of dissatisfaction with the attending doctor. Some counties do not distinguish be­ tween changes made "by consent" and those made "on notice."

His Role in Great Britain

19

Thus with an insured population of about 330,000, the changes in the Manchester area from 1932 to 1936 were as follows: Year

Number of Changes'

12,572 1932 ι'!,680 1933 i3>566 1934 1935 i3>io9 The Insurance Committee estimates, however, that 80 per cent of these "changes" of doctor were caused by the patient's removal4 to a residence more than two miles from his former doctor's office, and only 20 per cent (2,620 cases) involved transfer solely because of dissatisfaction with the attending practitioner. This constitutes well under 1 per cent of the insured persons in the area. Figures were not kept to indicate how many of these changes were by "consent" and how many by "notice." In Derbyshire the changes recorded ran above the Man­ chester figure, averaging 4,000 to 5,000 a year for an insured group of 250,000—i.e. from 1.60 per cent to 2 per cent of the group. Two-thirds of these transfers were by "notice" and one-third by "consent." How many were caused by change of residence rather than a real desire for a change of doctor is not recorded, and the committee makes no estimate of this figure. In London, with approximately 1,900,000 insured persons, the transfers "otherwise than by consent" were far more numerous. They averaged approximately 70,300 a year in the years 1932-1935 inclusive, which is more than 3.5 per cent of the insured group. In Buckinghamshire annual changes averaged 965 in the years 1933-1935 inclusive, with an average of 105,000 in­ sured. This is less than 1 per cent of those eligible to medical benefit. The changes, moreover, include "consent" as well as 3

Figures furnished by the Insurance Committee of Manchester. In such a situation the insured could, under a rule of the local Insurance Committee, transfer to another doctor without notice or consent of his former practitioner. 4

ΙΌ

The Health Insurance Doctor

"notice" transfers and transfers because of change of res­ idence. In the twenty-five years during which the British health insurance scheme has been in operation, the rules governing the right to change doctors and the right of the doctor to re­ move patients from his list have been frequently altered.5 From the beginning, change with the consent of all persons involved (the two doctors and the insured person) has been permitted at any time. Change against the will of the attend­ ing physician was at first permitted only once a year. This period was reduced several times and then abolished alto­ gether, changes being permitted at will. A two weeks' notice rule was later adopted, and finally, in 1931, the provisions allowing a non-consent change to be made only four times a year replaced the fourteen days' notice rule. The present rule was the result of a conviction current in 1931 on the part of the administrative authorities that it would check hasty and "tempery" changes and also would relieve the doctor of pos­ sible pressure from some of his patients to be generous in "certifying" them for their cash benefit.6 The organized medical profession has remained insistent that change at any time should be permitted, so that there will be no difference whatsoever in the relations of doctor and patient under the insurance scheme and in private practice. On the whole, however, the Insurance Committee sec­ retaries seem to attach little importance to the "notice" re­ quirement in changing doctors. It is their belief that ap­ proximately the same number of persons move about from doctor to doctor whether or not notice is required and re­ gardless of the notice period. They believe that the notice requirement is not justified on the score of preventing "won't works" from annoying doctors for undeserved cer­ tificates of incapacity. Most of them are emphatic that the extent of deliberate malingering by patients is small if not 5 6

For discussion of arrangements in Manchester and Salford see the next chapter. See pp. 58iff. for complete discussion of certification.

His Role in Great Britain

21

negligible. Several suggested that the only material result of the quarterly notice rule was a "bunching" of the changes that otherwise would be spread out evenly over the year. One committee (for Buckingham) had rather interesting evidence that the greatest percentage of transfers had not coincided with the period when patients could change doctor at will! CHANGES EFFECTED IN SECOND AND THIRD QUARTER OF THE YEAR 7

Quarter 3rd Quarter 2nd

Every Quarter on Month's Notice

At Will

On 14 Days' Notice

i927

1930

*9 33

353 339

230

271 196

190

The secretary of the Borough of Derby Insurance Com­ mittee reported as follows: "When the change could operate at any time, the number of changes was undoubtedly less than it is now, but so far as this area is concerned, the changes do not vary a great deal, the main reason being that we are not overstocked with doctors and choice is conse­ quently limited." With an insured population of 105,000, the changes each year since 1930 have varied between 506 and 555 per annum.8 The medical benefit regulations provide that, except in unusual circumstances and with special permission from the authorities, a doctor practising alone may not have more than 2,500 persons on his list. If two or more health insur­ ance doctors practise in partnership, the list of one of the partners may reach (but not exceed) 3,000, so long as the average on the lists of the partners is not over 2,500. If a practitioner or a partnership employs one or more permanent assistants, an additional 1,500 names per assistant are per­ mitted. As has been previously remarked, these lists total •potential, not actual patients. 7 Information furnished in June 1936 by Mr. Woods, secretary of the Insurance Com­ mittee for Buckinghamshire. 8 Information furnished in June 1936 by Mr. Irving, secretary of the Insurance Committee of Derby Borough.

22

The Health Insurance Doctor

A doctor's decision to place his name on the health in­ surance panel is, of course, not irrevocable. If he wishes thereafter to leave insurance practice, ordinarily he may have his name withdrawn from the panel on proper notice.9 The period of notice is at most three months and may be any shorter period agreed to by the Insurance Committee. The practitioner who wishes to withdraw because the terms of insurance service are altered, either as to duties or remu­ neration, may be held for two months at most.10 The notice requirements are obviously intended to give time for arrang­ ing substitute medical service for the insured workers in­ volved. Withdrawals from insurance work apparently are not very frequent. They result most frequently from the doctor's removal from the area, and as a rule every effort is made by the authorities to accommodate the doctor who presses for immediate release. Some withdrawals, however, are made as a result of "sale" of practice or good will. This has always been customary in Britain both within and without the in­ surance system. These sales are facilitated by the procedure described in the next paragraph. There is occasional com­ plaint that a few doctors have taken advantage of this custom of selling practices by making a business of working up an insurance practice just to sell it. On the death of an insurance doctor, the committee may permit a representative of the estate to appoint a temporary "deputy" physician, on salary paid by the estate. He may handle the insurance practice of the deceased for not more than two months, during which period the practice is sold. Names are transferred to another doctor's list during this 9 If, however, he has been accused of misconduct in connection with his insurance practice, he may retire to private practice only with permission of the Minister of Health and on such conditions as the Minister may impose. This, of course, is to prevent a doctor who is guilty of misconduct from saving himself from possible loss of privilege of health insurance practice by voluntary "withdrawal" when under fire. See pp. 6iff. for discussion of disciplinary control of the doctor. 10 Provided he acts within a month of notice of the change in terms.

His Role in Great Britain two months' period only on request of the patient. There­ after, on request of the representative, the committee must notify each insured worker on the list (as on the request of a withdrawing practitioner who "sells" his practice) that a certain named practitioner—the doctor who has "bought" the practice—is willing to accept him for treatment, and that, in the absence of formal request within a month for other arrangements, he will be deemed to be on this prac­ titioner's list. Notification for other arrangements involves well under 5 per cent of the practices that are "sold." Additions and Removals by the Insurance Committee Names may be added to medical lists by the local insur­ ance committees in two sets of circumstances: (1) when the worker fails to choose a doctor, and (2) when the doctor chooses to reject a patient. Not every insured person exercises his privilege of choos­ ing a doctor. About 2 to 3 per cent on the average (and in large cities more than 5 per cent)11 of the workers in an in­ surance area are not on any doctor's list. Usually this happens either because they never select a doctor or because the doctor they have selected withdraws from service without naming a successor. Most counties merely divide among all the panel doctors in proportion to their lists the money available for the persons who are not on any doctor's list.12 In some of the counties, however, after three months' time, the Insurance Committees assign such men and women to doctors who signify their willingness to receive allocations. Men building up a practice often welcome this addition to their responsibilities and income.13 11 Thus out of 255,415 on the insured register in Derbyshire (county area), 250,121 were on doctors' lists by their own action, 5,294 were not on doctors' lists (April 1936). Of 1,887,517 on insured register in London, 100,000 not on doctors' lists by their own action (March 1936). ω See pp. 78^. 13 The London Insurance Committee commenced only in October 1934 to "allocate." They regard the present system as still tentative and experimental.

H

The Health Insurance Doctor

The relative unpopularity of "allocation" is explained as follows. It is very difficult to keep the lists of insured persons accurate and up to date, especially in the cities where there is a substantial group of floaters who come in and out of the area without notifying the committee. This, of course, com­ plicates the allocation problem, for a doctor may be assigned names of persons who no longer live in the district. The doctor thus gets the right to payment because of respon­ sibility for the care of non-existent patients. Most of the committees, therefore, favor the system of merely dividing among all the doctors the funds available for the number listed as eligible but on no doctor's list, rather than alloca­ tion of individual workers to the medical lists of individual doctors.14 Years of experience have convinced the secretaries of the Insurance Committees that at any given time the number of names of insured persons who in reality have left the area (without notifying the insurance authorities) is about balanced by the number who have come in and have not had themselves added to the list of workers eligible for medical benefit. Occasionally workers who may be undesirable patients fail to find any doctor who will accept them. Yet the law entitles all insured workers to medical service. If the worker who is rejected by the practitioner or practitioners of his choice asks the Insurance Committee to find him a doctor, the com­ mittee may assign him arbitrarily. Even a doctor who has refused him may have to accept him on assignment by the committee, although such an arrangement would be made only in rural areas where all available doctors have refused 14 According to the report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health for 1936 there were 420,154 persons in England and Wales who had not selected their doctor or made other arrangements for receiving medical treatment. This is approx­ imately 2.6 per cent of those (16,320,000) he lists as eligible to medical benefit. His figures suggest, however, that the number he refers to as "having selected" includes those allocated by the Insurance Committees as well as those who have actually chosen of their own initiative. (See Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health for the year 1936, p. 75.)

His Role in Great Britain

25

an applicant. The "nuisances" are then parcelled out by rotation so as to distribute them as fairly as possible among the doctors concerned. The medical men feel no injury from this situation, as they accept as inevitable and proper their collective responsibility for treatment of the insured popula­ tion. Refusal by the doctor to accept a patient is very infre­ quent. For example, the Manchester Committee records only about a dozen rejections a year for 320,000 insured. In Bir­ mingham, with 475,000 insured, the committee reports from twelve to twenty such refusals a year. The Insurance Committee may remove insured persons from a doctor's list if, after a warning that he has exceeded the maximum number allowed, the doctor does not adjust the matter himself. The committee also removes from the doctor's list the names of persons who, with the intention of staying three months or more, move from the area in which the doctor practises. Workers who go away for less than three months remain on their home doctor's list and obtain any needed medical treatment during their stay elsewhere on a "temporary residence"15 basis or, if it is merely an over­ night stay, according to the rules in some counties, on an "emergency" basis. The latter arrangement is intended primarily for cases of accident or other sudden emergency. Treatment may then be demanded by an insured person of any insurance doctor if the worker's own physician is not available. There is no fixed definition of a "sudden emergency" or of the phrase "not available"; both are interpreted with practical com15 When a worker applies to a doctor on moving into a new insurance area, the doctor signs the "B" part of his medical card in case of a "temporary resident" and the "C" part if it is a permanent removal, i.e. for more than three months. The card is sent to the new doctor's committee and cleared through the Central Index Register, which keeps the committee informed of the movements of the workers on their medical register. If the worker claims to be insured and does not present his medical card, the doctor may charge a fee. The worker, if really entitled to medical benefits, can recover this from the Insurance Committee, which in turn holds the amount out of the doctor's next check.

20

The Health Insurance Doctor

mon sense. If a sudden urgent situation such as a hem­ orrhage occurs and there is no reasonable probability that the worker's own doctor can get to the spot without preju­ dicial delay, any insurance doctor must respond when called upon for help. Such service is specially paid for out of the Insurance Funds.16 The doctor has an obligation toward "temporary res­ idents" identical with that which he owes a regular resident who selects him for his doctor. The practitioner to whom he applies must either accept him for the period of his stay or else give needed temporary treatment pending his accep­ tance by another doctor. Treatment of temporary residents, like emergency treatment, is paid for on a special basis.17 The doctor is permitted to arrange with another practi­ tioner to act as his deputy in performing certain services which, while within the insurance contract, are services which he is unwilling to perform. Thus, for example, he may and sometimes does prefer to delegate certain surgical work to an­ other man. Every doctor is required, moreover, to provide for the handling of his practice during his temporary absence or when, because of conflicting professional duties, he cannot meet all his insurance obligations. He must, of course, inform his patients on these points. He must also notify the In­ surance Committee if he has any standing arrangements. Failing such, he must not leave his practice for more than a week without advising the committee of his proposed ab­ sence and furnishing the name of the practitioner who will be responsible as his deputy. Use of "permanent assistants" by the health insurance doctor is subject to supervision and regulation. Ordinarily 16 Section 16 of the Road Traffic Act of 1934 provides special fees for emergency treatment rendered to persons involved in traffic accidents. There is no distinction made between the treatment of insured and uninsured persons. Emergency service to a victim of a "road accident," does not, therefore, call for payment out of the insurance funds. 17 See pp. 33jf. for full discussion of payment of health insurance doctor and see pp. 39/. A worker whose employment requires him to travel constantly may apply for a special voucher which entitles him to obtain medical benefit in each place he resides on a temporary residence basis.

His Role in Great Britain

27

permanent assistants may not be employed to treat insured patients without permission of the Insurance Committee. Refusal of permission, however, must be reasonable and re­ quires preliminary consultation with the Panel Committee (the committee set up in each county to represent the health insurance doctors). If the Panel Committee, moreover, feels the consent should be granted (and only under such cir­ cumstances), the doctor may appeal to the Minister of Health for final settlement of his request. The Minister, of course, can uphold either the Panel Committee or the Insurance Committee. Thus here, as in all matters affecting the actual practice of medicine, a purely medical committee must be consulted before an administrative judgment is permitted. The doctor who employs an assistant must remain in effective charge of all his patients. He may not in effect divide his practice with an assistant so that the latter is really re­ sponsible for part of the practice. One of the usual grounds for withholding permission to have an assistant is that there is no reasonable chance that the insurance doctor will be able to give personally the service which he is obligated to attend to in person. The committee may consent to more than one assistant only with the approval of the Minister. The doctor must arrange reasonable office hours to the satisfaction of his Insurance Committee and, of course, must visit and attend his patients at their homes when their con­ dition requires it. He must also provide an adequately equipped office, as well as suitable waiting-room accommoda­ tions. Insurance Committees differ considerably in the amount of responsibility they have taken about the condition of "sur­ geries" (offices) and waiting rooms. Thus, for example, as late as 1935 the London Committee undertook for the first time systematic inspection of the accommodations of all the health insurance physicians, although London, like all large cities, has so many of every grade of practitioner that

28

The Health Insurance Doctor

admittedly there is more real need of inspection of "surgeries" than elsewhere. For some years London has required inspec­ tion before granting permission to employ a permanent assistant, and recently it has been ruled that survey of accommodations and equipment be made on each addition to the medical panel. Birmingham, in contrast to London, began a supervisory program in the second year of the operation of the Act (1913), repeated it in 1922 and again in 1936. The entire area had been covered at least once, and all those sections deemed in need of check-up, at least twice. In addition, a special inspec­ tion has been made when a new doctor added his name to the panel and when a practitioner changed quarters. The Devon­ shire Committee made one complete survey five or six years ago. In all cases the inspecting is done by the Insurance Com­ mittee with the cooperation of the Panel Committee of doctors. Usually there is a delegation of two, one doctor and one layman.18 "Own Arrangements" With the approval of the Insurance Committee, insured members always have been permitted two alternatives to the customary family doctor service. One, called "collective own arrangements," is the substitution of treatment through an approved institution which furnishes medical care for its own membership (the society then receives an allotment from the committee); the other, termed "private own arrangements," is the substitution of treatment through a non-insurance doctor, toward the cost of which an annual allotment is paid. Less than 1 per cent of those eligible to medical benefit are provided for through "collective own arrangements." Only societies that were functioning in 1911 are approved for this 18 Far more important than committee inspection, however, in the standardization of the doctor's equipment for serving his insurance patients has been the effective co­ operative effort of the British Medical Association. See pp. ηββ.

His Role in Great Britain

29

purpose. An increase in this substitute method is therefore impossible, except through enlarged membership of existing organizations; the membership, however, has for some time remained practically stationary.19 The chief advantage to the insured of being permitted to receive medical benefit through a society is that it helps to maintain an institution through which, for a small annual sum, his wife and children may also receive medical service. Otherwise he usually gets nothing that he could not receive from a partnership of doctors, for service is as a rule re­ stricted to general practitioner service. Many doctors in different parts of England, moreover, with the approval of the British Medical Association, have been offering their services on a voluntary insurance basis to wives and children of insured workers. The chief medical quarrel with the medical aid societies is over the amount of their membership charge, which they allege to be inadequate for the proper remuneration of the doctors employed by the organizations.20 Only one-tenth of 1 per cent of those eligible for medical benefit make their "private own arrangements." Most of this group are required to do so because they are caught under rulings that committees are empowered to make which require persons with incomes exceeding a certain figure to make direct arrangements for their medical care. A few who are not in this high-income group are permitted to be "own arrangers" because of individual special circumstances, such as long dependence on homeopathic medical treatment but no homeopath among the insurance doctors in the area. Some of the committees now refuse to permit any such "own ar­ rangers." 19 "Collective own arrangements" are a survival from the days when there was no Health Insurance Act. Certain "medical aid societies" had been formed in different parts of England. These organizations made a successful fight for incorporation in the in­ surance act of the principle that their members might elect to continue to receive medical aid through their societies. 20 See pp. 38^. for illustrations of financial arrangements between insurance com­ mittees and "collective own arrangers' " organizations, and pp. 3gjf. for financial provision for the "own arrangers."

3°

The Health Insurance Doctor

Additional Treatment Benefits In supplement to the general practitioner service and free drugs, which constitute the health insurance scheme's medical benefit, most of the larger insurance societies pay in part for various additional curative services on a voluntary extra benefit basis. A sum equal to one-third of the amount spent upon medical benefit is expended for these supplemen­ tary services. The most commonly afforded additional benefits are dental benefits and ophthalmic benefits. Nearly ten million of the fifteen and a half million insured workers belong to societies which furnish these two "extra benefits." The bulk of the dental work done under additional benefit has been provision of artificial dentures made necessary by long and complete neglect of the teeth. In 1934, for instance, 48 per cent of those drawing upon dental benefit had teeth filled, and 62 per cent had artificial dentures supplied. Every year, however, with the educational work which has been pressed,by the Ministry of Health, a slightly larger percen­ tage of those who draw dental benefit have remedial fill­ ings.21 The ophthalmic benefit consists of contributions toward the cost of eye examinations and glasses. The British Medical Association has undertaken a drive against the use by the societies of opticians rather than medical men trained in eye work. With a group of dispensing opticians, the Association has formed the National Ophthalmic Treatment Board. Lists are offered of qualified eye men and collaborating opticians. The listed physicians will not only examine eyes and pre­ scribe glasses, but also perform such simple operative work at the specialist's office as is feasible and, if eye disorders are detected, give the worker's health insurance doctor a report on any treatment he is capable of carrying out.22 21 See Ministry of Health, "Dental Benefit," Great Britain, Statutory Rules and Orders, 1935, no. 644. 22 Their services, incidentally, are offered to the members of the insured worker's family and to other persons of similar economic status at the same reduced rate.

His Role in Great Britain

31

Government regulations now stipulate that societies offer­ ing ophthalmic benefit must permit the worker to choose from this list if he desires to do so, even if the society prefers other arrangements. A subcommittee of the British Medical Association, composed of full-time eye specialists, scrutinizes applications of doctors to be added to this list. Eligibility depends upon proof that the doctor either has held special hospital or clinic appointments providing training and ex­ perience in the field or has had special post-graduate work plus experience in the field, or, failing these, that he is rec­ ognized generally by medical men as having special skill and experience in eye work. Treatment in hospitals or convalescent homes, nursing care, and contribution toward the cost of major medical or surgical appliances are the chief other additional treatment benefits given by the health insurance societies.23 Statistics According to figures furnished by the British Medical Association, in the fall of 1936, there were 22,931 general practitioners in England and Wales. Of these, 20,638 were men—14,930 health insurance doctors, and 5,708 non-insurance doctors. In other words, nearly three-fourths of the men in general practice were panel doctors. There were 2,293 women general practitioners. Only 938 (two-fifths) of these women were health insurance doctors, and 1,355 (three-fifths) were not on the panel. Approximately 15,500,000 insured persons were entitled to medical benefit— an average of about 975 insured persons per practising health insurance doctor.24 23 See

pp. 9yf. for discussion of hospital care under "voluntary" insurance schemes. furnished in September 1936. See pp. Afiff. for average medical income from health insurance work. 24 Figures

REMUNERATION OF HEALTH INSURANCE DOCTORS

T

HE British Health Insurance Act does not prescribe any particular method of paying the health insurance doctors. From the premiums or contributions which are collected, the Ministry of Health sets aside a central medical pool for the payment of all the insured medical work. The amount that goes into this pool each year is calculated by multiplying the number of insured persons (as estimated by the government actuary) by a stipulated figure. This capitation fee (now 9s. per insured person per year) has been fixed by the Ministry of Health in agreement with the In­ surance Acts Committee of the British Medical Association, which is accepted as a collective consulting agency for the doctors. In addition to the medical pool, a central mileage fund is established to cover the extra travelling expenses of practice in rural and semi-rural areas as compared with urban practice.1 A third fund set up is called the Practitioners Drugs Ac­ count (separate and distinct from the pool created for paying the pharmacists),2 which is used to pay for the emergency 1 See pp. 36/f. The original capitation fee (fixed in 1912) was 6s. 6d., plus 6d. for domiciliary treatment of tuberculosis and with a contingent additional amount up to 6d. from the drug fund, which brought the capitation fee up to 7s. 3d. War bonuses were paid in 1918 and 1919. A capitation of 11s. was paid during 1920-1921; 9s. 6d. in 1922 and 1923; in 1924 the fee was set at 9s. where it has remained, subject, however, to certain economy deductions in 1931-1935. 2 Any pharmacist who desires to do so may join the panel of druggists in his area, by agreeing with the Insurance Committee to dispense on agreed terms. A Drug Tariff, i.e. a table of prices of drugs and scheduled appliances, etc., is issued by the Ministry of Health every month, and a dispensing fee is also payable in respect of each prescrip­ tion. Since August 1, 1937, the druggists collectively accept each year the Drug Pool (2s-3/4d. per person until January 1, 1936, since then 2s. nd.) and accept responsi-

His Role in Great Britain

33

drags and appliances which all panel doctors must dispense and to remunerate the doctors in rural areas who, because of the inaccessibility" of a pharmacy, supply all drugs and ap­ pliances. In supplement to the moneys set aside for remuneration of the physicians and for meeting their rural travelling ex­ penses and their outlay in dispensing for insurance patients, a "special grants" fund, now amounting to about £8,000 ($40,000), is set apart. This is used in part as a subsidy fund to provide telephones, branch offices, automobiles, and to finance vacations for doctors in very sparsely settled dis­ tricts. The object of the subsidy fund is, of course, to raise the standard of medical care by improving the facilities of doctors whose practice cannot yield a sufficient return. The "special grants" fund also supports scholarships for rural doctors, to enable them to take short "refresher" courses of post-graduate study. These central pools are distributed by the Minister after advice from the Medical Distribution Committee,3 among the various insurance areas (counties and county boroughs), and in these areas the administrative committees, the In­ surance Committees, distribute the funds among the in­ dividual doctors. The amount to be distributed to the different areas is worked out with reference to their relative medical burden. The number of fixed insured residents, the average number of temporary residents, the mileage prob­ lems of the doctors, and other similar matters are considered. Representatives of the medical profession help in the ad­ visory committee report, which is considered each year in apportioning the funds. bility for the supply of all insurance medicaments dispensed by pharmacists. In most years since, they have received payment at a higher rate than the tariff rate. See Min­ istry of Health, 9th to 17th Annual Reports for details with reference to tariff. 3 Appointed by the Minister and comprising the Government Actuary, represen­ tatives of the Department of Health, of Insurance Committees and of the health insurance doctors. This Committee gathers full particulars of the insured population and geographical conditions in each area. It makes a report to the Minister informing him what it deems to be a just apportionment of the total fund among the areas.

34

The Health Insurance Doctor The General Medical Pool

The question of the method of paying for the health in­ surance work has been left in each area to the doctors them­ selves (legally4 to the Insurance Committee plus approval of the Minister on advice of the Panel Committee; actually this advice always has been taken). Theoretically, there could be great diversity between counties in the way of pay­ ing the insurance doctors under the British Act. Actually, in all areas except Manchester and the adjoining district of Salford, the doctors by 1914 had elected one standard method of payment. The Salford and Manchester practitioners, in 1927 and 1928 respectively, also put this standard method into operation. Since then there has been but one system of payment in operation throughout the kingdom.6 The British doctors term this payment scheme which they have chosen the "capitation system," i.e. payment per capita of the insured on a doctor's list, be they sick or well. The doctors thus have elected to have their remuneration vary with the number of people for whose care they are re­ sponsible, rather than with the items of medical service they may render. The doctor receives a government check every quarter. Its amount is determined primarily by the number of names on his medical list at the beginning of the period. Persons added during the quarter are not counted until the next quarter, but this is balanced by the rule that no credit is lost for those who go off a list in this period. A single account may be rendered to a partnership, and this is usually done. The exact method used in distributing the area's money among the doctors is as follows: 4 See Sec. 32 of the National Health Insurance Act, also Medical Benefit Regulations, Sec. 23. 5 Kent, Manchester, and Salford in 1913 adopted a straight fee system, a few others adopted a combination of capitation and fees. See pp. 41/f. for exposition of Man­ chester experience prior to 1927 and see 1st Annual Report of the National Health Insurance Commission for detailed account of this stormy first year, pp. 125-48.

His Role in Great Britain

35 The Insurance Committee of the area sets aside each quarter a sum for expenses of the Panel Committee (the insurance doctors' committee) and for any exceptional ser­ vices which are specially paid for,6 such as administering anesthetics. To determine distribution of the remaining funds, units of credit are first calculated: ι unit for each name on each doctor's list (at the beginning of the quarter) 4 or 5 units (or whatever number the committee has decided on) for each temporary resident treated throughout the quarter in the area. This number is determined on the basis of the relative burden of the temporary as compared to the permanent res­ idents. The total number of units of credit is then divided into the amount to be apportioned among the doctors. This gives the quarterly capitation figure. The amount due the individual doctor is then computed by first multiplying this capitation figure by the number of his units of credit and then adding to this amount special fees for any special fee work he has performed for someone else's patients and subtracting any special fees which have been paid another practitioner for similar service to his patients. ILLUSTRATION OF A QUARTERLY SETTLEMENT

One quarter of the amount ($100,000) allotted to the area for the year Deductions for Panel Committee Expenses Anesthetics Other special payments Total Deductions Net amount to be distributed 6 This

$25,000 $100

100 50 250 124,750

usually includes fees for administering anesthetics and rarely for certain other special services, such as night visits and certain operations.

φ

The Health Insurance Doctor There are 40,000 units of credit on all doctors' lists. There are 2,150 units on Dr. Brown's list (2,000 regular res­ idents, 30 temporary residents treated, each counted as 5 units). Dr. Brown has performed no emergency work for other doctors' patients. No doctor has performed emergency work for his patients. Dr. Brown will receive for the quarter·. ¢24,750 -=- 40,000 X 2,150 = $1,328.70

Mileage Fund The central mileage fund is itself divided into two parts. The so-called Main Part is used to pay allowances for ordinary rural travelling beyond two miles from the doctor's house. The Special Part is used for additional allowances for travel that entails exceptional difficulties, such as use of bad roads and footpaths, fording streams, crossing lakes, etc. It should be emphasized that mileage payments are not intended to cover the cost of all travelling entailed by medical practice, but merely the excess of travel required in a rural or semi-rural practice as compared with town prac­ tice. Computations for mileage allowances were first put on the basis of actual experience by using statistics of 750 typical practices in 1921 and 1922.7 Periodic revision is based on similar first-hand information about the actual situation of representative insurance doctors. About a fifth of the Special Part of the mileage fund is used to pay exceptional travel allowances to doctors in certain very sparsely settled areas (which do not offer a remunerative practice) as a form of sub­ sidy to ensure the likelihood of a resident doctor. The committees in the different insurance areas may not mix their Special Part grant with their Main Part allotment. 7 As a result of study of these statistics roughly 6,000,000 miles was estimated as the total rural or semi-rural travel in England and Wales, is. a mile was allotted and 9^d. per patient was deducted as representing the amount expended by town and country doctors alike in reaching patients in need of visits. The residue constituted $1,250,000, of which ¢1,025,000 was allocated to ordinary allowances.

His Role in Great Britain

37

The relative amounts of these shares vary, of course, with the travelling problems of the counties. Thus Westmorland's Special Part grant is almost as large as its Main Part. Essex, on the other hand, has few spots difficult of access, and ac­ cordingly, its Main Part allotment is almost twenty times as great as its Special share. Devon's Special mileage is about one-third of its Main mileage fund. Middlesex and Notting­ hamshire need only a Main Part allowance. In each area the individual Insurance Committee, in col­ laboration with the Panel Committee and with the approval of the Minister of Health, decides on a "scheme" for dividing up their area's share of the Main Part and the Special Part. Actually, the Main Part is divided in most insurance areas in much the same way. The usual system of mileage allow­ ance is on a capitation basis, just as is the doctor's remunera­ tion for medical service. Mileage is paid for each person on the medical list who lives at a distance, whether or not the doctor in fact is called upon to visit him in the particular three months' period covered by the payment. In conse­ quence, mileage payments vary with the distance ο{potential travel to potential patients, rather than with the actual miles the doctor may drive in any particular quarter. Units are calculated as follows: First, one unit is allowed the doctor for each patient in respect to each mile (or fraction thereof) in excess of two in the distance between the patient's house and the doctor's office. Thus, for example, the practitioner gets one unit for each patient who lives between two and three miles distant, two units for those who live between three and four miles distant, and so on. If several members of the household are insured, the doctor is allowed the appropriate units for each. Second, the doctor's practice is classified from a travel standpoint as (i) easy, (2) ordinary, or (3) difficult. Deductions are made from the computed units for an "easy" practice. Additions are made to the computed units for a "difficult" practice.

38

The Health Insurance Doctor

There is considerable diversity in the methods used in dividing up the Special Part.8 The Practitioner s Drugs Account Each insurance area distributes its share of the Practi­ tioner's Drugs Account on the basis of either capitation or "payment per prescription dispensed in accordance with the Drug Tariff." If the latter type of payment is adopted, the amount paid includes (i) actual cost of drug or dressing, plus (2) the dispensing fee. (The Drug Tariff is the official list of prices, revised monthly, on the basis of which the Insurance Committee evaluates the drugs.) The capitation method of payment is the one generally adopted and is supplemented by special payment for speci­ fied exceptionally expensive drugs. The drugs capitation fee is uniform for all areas and, like the capitation amount for medical services, is negotiated centrally by the Insurance Acts Committee of the British Medical Association. The 1936 figure was set at 2s. 3d. (56 cents) per head if all drugs are supplied, and is. 3d. (31 cents) per 100 persons on the list if only emergency drugs and appliances are dispensed by the doctor. Collective "Own Arrangements" As explained in the previous section, about 1 per cent of the insured persons receive their medical care from Approved Medical Aid Societies. The doctors furnished by these so­ cieties are salaried employees of these organizations. The Insurance Committee, on receiving a certified report of the society's expenditures, pays the society either the per­ centage of its expenditures which may be properly allocated to medical care of the insured membership or the amount on hand in the committee's hands for such care, whichever is smaller. The percentage properly attributable to the insured depends upon the ratio of total expenditures for medical 8 Interesting examples are found in the mileage "schemes" of Devonshire and Cum­ berland.

His Role in Great Britain

39

service represented by the ratio of the insured members to the total membership. It is agreed that the cost of medical service for insured members should be weighted, since the non-insured members of an Approved Medical Aid Society are required to pass a medical examination, and therefore are selected risks. Frequently the committee counts two insured members as equivalent to three uninsured members. ILLUSTRATION

An Approved Society (in Derbyshire) with a total membership of 6,800 had 4,400 "insured members" in 1935. Figure 1. The cost of Society's medical care which may be properly allocated to insured members ¢12,250 Figure 2. The amount allocated by the Insurance Committee to furnishing 4,400 persons medical care ¢11,700 Since Figure 2 was less than that actually expended (Figure 1), the society received the full ¢11,700. Had Figure 1 (the amount spent) been less than Figure 2 (what the Committee could spend), the smaller would have been paid.9

Individual "Own Arrangers''' A sum equal to the combined annual amount due from the insurance pool for medical care for the "own arrangers" is placed each year by the committee in a separate account. At the end of the year, the bills incurred for medical care, calculated in accordance with a scale of fees fixed by the committee, are presented by all the "own arrangers." The committee may disallow items which they deem excessive (the insured is allowed to present his case for full allowance). The "own arrangers" then receive their proportionate share from the account. If there has been but little sickness and there is enough to cover all the bills, those who present bills may find them paid in full. These bills, however, are cal9 In the case of this institution, the committee counted two insured members as equivalent to three uninsured members.

40

The Health Insurance Doctor

culated in accordance with fixed fees and may be far less than the actual bills of the physician. If there has been a great deal of illness and demands are heavy, the "own arrangers" may get back less than their presented bills and a still smaller fraction of what they have paid to their physicians. Altogether, 13s. per insured person is guaranteed for meet­ ing the costs of medical benefit. The total health insurance income of all the doctors practising under the scheme in 1935 in England was £6,922,000 ($34,610,000).10 Of this total, £6,520,000 ($32,600,000) was for medical services, £204,000 ($1,020,000) for mileage, £191,000 ($955,000) for medicines dispensed (10 per cent estimated to be profit), and nearly £7,000 ($35,000) in "special grants" to rural doctors. The latter included a few subsidy grants of as much as £275 ($^375) t° doctors in remote and inaccessible districts and also grants which enabled forty-five doctors to take post­ graduate summer courses. The average health insurance income per insurance doctor, counting the first two and fourth items and 10 per cent of the third, was approximately £426 ($2,150).11 Foreign income unrelated to foreign wage levels, when stated in terms of American currency, is relatively meaning­ less. It is useful, therefore, to compare this medical income with the maximum earning capacity of (1) the skilled British worker in the engineering trades, (2) the unskilled British laborer in the engineering trades, and (3) the agricultural laborer. The maximum annual earning capacity of such a skilled worker, assuming fifty weeks of employment, was £155 ($775); that of the unskilled engineering laborer was £105 ($525); that of the agricultural laborer £80 16/ ($404), 10 There were the following additional payments from the Health Insurance Funds "for medical service (including drugs)" to insured persons. The sum of £63,700 ($318,500) was paid to approved institutions on account of insured persons and £7,900 ($39,500) to "private own arrangers" for medical service from non-panel doctors. 11 The number of insured eligible to medical benefit in 1935 was approximately 15,000,000. Nine shillings was the capitation fee, subject, however, to an economy de­ duction for the first half year of 1935.

His Role in Great Britain

41

assuming fifty-two weeks of employment.12 The average medical income from health insurance thus equalled almost two and four-fifths times the average maximum earnings of the skilled engineering worker, a little more than four times that of the laborer in the same industry, and more than five times that of the agricultural laborer. It should not be overlooked that the health insurance in­ come of the British doctor represents merely his income on account of the insured wage earners. Services to the families of these wage earners, as well as those rendered the betterpaid non-insured persons, of course mean additional re­ ceipts. Such services are not all on a fee basis. Much of the treatment of families of the insured is now on an insurance basis through a supplementary voluntary insurance organized by the doctors and sponsored by the British Medical Asso­ ciation pending the addition of family benefits to the regular insurance scheme. A small weekly contribution is collected— usually 6d. (12, cents)—and the doctors render the family service on a capitation basis just as they do the regular in­ surance service to the workers. The usual amount of sup­ plementary income collected for non-insurance work was estimated in all parts of England as sufficient to make total medical income about double the insurance receipts in the case of a doctor with a practice confined to insured workers' families and proportionately more with an increasing ratio of practice among the better-to-do. lThe "Manchester

System" of Payment

The so-called Manchester System, i.e. payment by fee for each unit of medical service rendered, as has been stated, was not retained after 1914 by any of the small groups of coun­ ties which originally adopted it, except Manchester and the neighboring-Salford district. The Salford and Manchester 12 See Great Britain, fpth Statistical Abstract jor the United Kingdom, 1936, cmd. 5144, p. 139, for wage data.

42

The Health Insurance Doctor

doctors gave it up at the end of 1926 and 1927 respectively, after fifteen and sixteen years' experience with it. Doctors under the attendance system were required to keep service records of each patient treated and each item of service rendered. Patients were allowed, of course, to shift freely from doctor to doctor at will. The doctors' service records were presented each quarter to the Panel Com­ mittee of doctors, and this committee determined the actual amount to be paid the individual practitioners in accordance with a schedule agreed to by the Insurance Committee and the Panel Committee. There were seven types of service recorded, and according to the revised schedule they were weighted as follows :13 1. Office visit—1 unit. 2. Ordinary house visit (daytime visit during usual calling hours of the M.D.)—1.5 units. 3. Special visit (urgent visit at other than usual calling hours of the M.D.)—4 units. 4. Night visits (between 9:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m. in response to call received during those hours)— 4 units. 5. Surgical operation requiring local anesthetic—4 units. 6. Administration of general anesthetic—14 units. 7. Setting of fracture or reduction of dislocation— 14 units. The total number of units for all the doctors was then di­ vided into the sum allotted to the area for payment of the 13 Until 1914, instead of being computed as units, a money equivalent was used as follows: OfBce visit—3s. Ordinary house visit—4s. Special visit—Js. Night visit—ios. Surgical operation requiring local anesthetic—ios. 6d. Administration of general anesthetic—£2 2s. Setting of fracture or reduction of dislocation—£ 2 2s.

His Role in Great Britain

43

area's insured medical service. This furnished the fee per unit of service rendered. At first the doctors' records, in the absence of allegation of fraud, were accepted as presented. In the course of time, how­ ever, such dissatisfaction was expressed by many doctors at the relatively high number of visits of certain practitioners, that the physicians directed the Panel Committee to work out some form of equitable regulation of accounts. This regulation became gradually standardized along the follow­ ing lines. From all the accounts the average unit credit per patient treated was computed. Then the average per patient for each doctor was computed. In the case of each doctor whose individual average exceeded the general average, the Panel Committee made inquiry to determine whether special circumstances justified the difference. Before any account was actually reduced, notice was sent to the doctor concerned asking him either to appear or to submit a written statement defending his charges. Since, in best of faith, judgment of medical men differs as to the number of visits necessary during a given illness, bitter feeling was often engendered by the Panel Committee's reduction of accounts. In Salford the committee was pushed into still further standardization. An arbitrary standard of proper average attendance was fixed by the Panel Committee, and all doctors' claims that exceeded this standard were automatically reduced to conform to this average. The practitioner then was required to establish his right to an additional crediting, should he insist upon such. Meantime, despite the Panel Committee's supervision, the number of total items of service mounted steadily year by year. General medical opinion has it that this was caused by the small minority of unscrupulous physicians, the in­ evitable chiselers who are found in all walks of life. Unable, because of the Panel Committee's control, to run up bills indefinitely in the individual illness case, apparently they simply spread their claims over a greater number of patients. Sometimes this was done by sheer prevarication about

44

The Health Insurance Doctor

pretended visits, operations, etc.—so clumsily done on oc­ casion that the fraud was obvious to the Panel Committee. Sometimes doctors forgot the number of days in a month so that, as one committee secretary put it, "When they said they visited patients on February 30 and 31 and June and September 31, they were apt to be doubted when they said that they stayed away from golf to visit people on Sundays." More often, however, inflation of the number of visits was of a character that was impossible to control. Workers were encouraged by the little group of trouble-making doctors to exaggerate their trifling ailments, urged to come in for un­ necessary prescriptions of palatable tonics, and otherwise induced to collaborate in the swelling of the items of the service rendered. The result, of course, was that with a fixed sum to divide and a constantly increasing number of units of service to be oaid for, the payment per item of service became steadily ess with each successive year. The following statistics of the final six years' experience under the fee system show the mounting number of annual credits disallowed by the Panel Committee and, despite this, the steadily increasing number of credits allowed and, in consequence, the diminishing cash value of the unit of service rendered. MANCHESTER INSURANCE COMMITTEE

Statistics Relating to Accounts of Practitioners14 Under the Attendance System of Medical Benefit for the Years 1922-1927 Year 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 Amount* for medical care allowed the area per in­ sured person per year $2.38 $2.38 $2.25 $2.25 ¢2.25 !2.25 Units disallowed by Panel Committee 85,974! 109,515! 106,772 139,250 173,384 205,991 Total units in accounts allowed 1,402,318 i,53°>2°3 1,662,734 1,813,^7 !,944,654 2,168,361 Average cash value* per unit credited $.52 $.46 $.40 $.37 ¢.36 ί.32 *Counting a shilling at twenty-five cents. fComputed approximately. Disallowances actually computed in cash these years. 14 Furnished by Mr. Dewhurst, assistant secretary of the Manchester Insurance Com­ mittee in June 1936.

His Role in Great Bntain

45

Reduction in value of the unit of service inflicted hardship upon the great majority of men, who were conscientious and scrupulous about their accounts, to the advantage of the small group whose inflated accounts were causing the trouble. Similarly, the rule which had been made in the interest of checking frauds, that no doctor without proof could have credit for more than "average" services, worked such an im­ position upon the time and energy of the reliable busy man that he often forfeited a just claim rather than pursue his remedy. The final determination of the doctors to abandon the fee system in favor of the capitation arrangement long in opera­ tion in the rest of Britain was concurred in by the over­ whelming majority of the practitioners in the area. Never­ theless, there are still to be found a few dissenters among the older medical men who resisted the change and still feel that further adjustments should have been tried before giving up payment "according to unit of service rendered." There seems to be no dissent, however, to the following explanation of the surrender of the fee system: control was required be­ cause it was impossible for all doctors to trust each other, yet control, even when in the hands of medical men, pushed inevitably toward standardization of average amounts for specific medical cases; such control worked hardship to the conscientious and scrupulous men and yet was incapable of preventing imposition by those disposed to take advantage. The general sentiment relative to the change to capitation seems to be profound relief that bickering over accounts is ended and that bookkeeping is transferred to the Insurance Committee, which pays the doctor according to a uniform system that plays no favorites and leaves the doctor to practise his profession in peace.15 16 In the Report of the Royal Com. on National Health Insurance, 1924, Appendix C at p. 91, it was mentioned that some of the Insurance Committees wished to put the Manchester system in effect (to obviate the work of keeping Medical Lists, etc.), but the opposition of the medical profession was so great that capitation was retained.

THE WORK INVOLVED IN HEALTH INSURANCE PRACTICE

Medical Work

I

N turning to the actual work done by the British health insurance doctor, it must be borne in mind that invalidity and health insurance are merged in Britain. The doctor therefore serves in a threefold capacity. He is, to the extent that the services of a general practitioner are needed, doctor (1) for those who are normally at work and are temporarily ill or injured (including those suffering industrial injury), and (2) for those who are permanently invalided and drawing invalidity pensions, and (3) for those who are more than sixty-five years of age and are drawing old-age pensions through the Insurance Funds.1 More than 90 per cent of the persons he serves are of working age. Official figures of the actual average units of medical work per insured person occasioned by health insurance practice were not made public until the summer of 1937. At that time evidence based upon the experience of 10 per cent of the British Medical Association membership in each area was presented to a governmental Court of Enquiry.2 This placed on record the following statistics: 1 This does not include, of course, persons drawing the gratuitous pension paid on proof of need to persons over seventy, but merely those who receive their pensions as a right under the insurance system, cf. Chap, ix, n. 4, supra·, in re special payments for emergency care in traffic cases. 2 This court was appointed to consider whether the capitation of 9s. should be altered. The British Medical Association asked for an increase of 12s. 6d. The Ministry of Health asked for a reduction to 8s. The court's decision was that the 9s. level should remain unchanged and this was accepted by the parties. See full account of this evidence in British Medical Journal, issues of May 29, and June 12, 1937 and see n. 3, infra.

47

His Role in Great Britain Number of insured persons involved in the sampling study Office consultations House calls Average consultations per insured Average house calls per insured Average items (i.e. either consultations or house calls per insured)

1,590,207 6,054,268 2,115,992 3.Bo 1.33 5·τ3

For the seven years 1930 to 1936, inclusive, the average number of consultations was 3.705, the average number of house calls was 1.315, thus constituting an average of 5.02 items per insured. This service, it must be remembered, is for the care of both temporary illness (including industrial in­ jury) and invalidity. Specific records of individual practitioners with rural and town practices selected at random serve to illustrate the variation in percentage of potential patients who became real patients, i.e. the fraction of the medical list actually seen in health insurance work. Thus, a rural practitioner in Lincoln­ shire saw the following percentages of his patients in the four quarters in 1935: 30, 32, 23, and 35 per cent. A man in a neighboring town saw a much heavier percentage, namely, 55, 59, 59, and 58 per cent. A small-town prac­ titioner in Nottingham saw 52 per cent of his list during the year, an average of 5.4 times each. In the previous year he saw 49 per cent of his list an average of 5.3 times. Another man in a neighboring town saw nearly 60 per cent of his list. Undoubtedly the percentage of the list seen by the town practitioner with his accessible "surgery" is heavier than that of his colleague in rural practice, and with equal assur­ ance it may be said that the town man sees relatively more patients at his office and fewer at their homes. The assortment of services rendered by the health insur­ ance physician includes, of course, giving drug prescriptions (for only with a prescription from his doctor may the worker secure his medicaments without cost), giving certificates of

48

The Health Insurance Doctor

incapacity to enable his patients to get their cash benefit, as well as actual physical check-overs at his office or visits at the patients' homes.3 No official figures are available to indicate the distribution of units among the various types of service—beyond the previously mentioned distribution between office and home visits. Scattered sources of information from well known in­ dividual practitioners4 suggest that even in the worst months of the year not more than a fifth of the patients seen in in­ surance practice require a real examination or "going over." The other 80 per cent come in (or are visited) for prescrip­ tions, for certificates, or for a "follow up" check of a con­ dition understood from an earlier complete examination. Paper Work·. Certification As stated in Chapter II,6 one of the obligations accepted by the health insurance doctor is that of "certification." On request he must give a "certificate of incapacity" to a patient who, in his medical judgment, should not be at work. The patient then presents the certificate to his health insurance society as evidence that his condition calls for the weekly cash payment. And the doctor must issue a "final certificate" when he believes his patient is once more fit to work. Books of certificates are issued to the doctors by the Insurance Committee, stamped with the name and address of the doctor. Decision to pay the cash sickness (or disability) benefit is made, in the last analysis, by the society—ordinarily, how­ ever, payment is made on the basis of the doctor's certificate. In fact, as it is put by the Medical Insurance Practice book issued by the British Medical Association, "Every certificate is, in effect, a check drawn on the Benefit Funds of Approved 3 The Ministry of Health in a sampling study in 1936 of 660 practices, found only 3.66 units of service per card. See British Med. Journ.,Supp. 1937, p. 320. 4 Each of whose medical lists totalled two thousand or more. 5 p. 15 -supra.

His Role in Great Britain

49

Societies and even slight laxity in the issue of certificates may produce serious financial results."6 Seven types of certificate are used by the doctor in insur­ ance practice: a death certificate, the first and final cer­ tificates already mentioned, three kinds of "intermediate certificate," and a so-called "voluntary certificate." The ordinary "intermediate certificate" is really a renewal certificate signed every week during the continuance of in­ capacity. In cases where a long recovery period is to be ex­ pected and where weekly examination and treatment is unnecessary, a "special intermediate certificate" may be issued at intervals of not more than four weeks. Further, a "convalescent intermediate certificate," covering a two weeks' period away from home for convalescent purposes, may be used when a patient has had at least four weeks' treatment. If he goes away to recuperate aft'er a shorter period, he must get weekly certificates from a doctor in the locality he visits. The first and intermediate certificates are due "on request" of the worker if the doctor believes them justified. The final, whether requested or not, must be given when the doctor believes his patient is ready for work again. These must be signed either at the time of actual examination or within twenty-four hours of this time. The "voluntary certificate," on the other hand, may be issued retroactively, and is in­ tended to cover cases where a worker who is actually in­ capacitated and entitled to cash benefit has not asked his doctor for a certificate at the proper time. A special charge may be made for a certificate of this sort, though most doc­ tors do not take advantage of the privilege. Except in cases in which a statement of the disease or dis­ ability suffered would be a hazard to the health of the pa­ tient, the certificate must indicate the specific ailment which causes the incapacity. Obviously, it is frequently impossible, 6 Harris

and Sack, Medical Insurance Practice, p. 104.

5o

The Health Insurance Doctor

because of difficulties of diagnosis, to state more than general symptoms in many first and even intermediate certificates. The physician must, however, be as precise as possible and, with the continuance of incapacity, is expected ordinarily to be able to give increasingly exact information. A so-called "vague certificate" is given when the physician deems it unwise that the patient should know his actual con­ dition. In such cases, a real report is sent to the Regional Medical Officer,7 together with an explanation of the need for withholding the real information. In giving certificates of incapacity, the doctor is passing judgment upon a condition of his patient described by the law in terms that are susceptible of various interpretations. "Incapable of work" literally construed would, of course, mean unable to perform any work. It is tacitly agreed, how­ ever, that the phrase means ordinarily, i.e. in cases of tem­ porary sickness as contrasted with invalidity cases, unable to follow his ordinary occu-pation. It is deemed unreasonable and not within the contemplation of the insurance law that a worker whose physical condition temporarily keeps him from his regular work should in the interim be expected to find some unusual employment which he might physically be fit to perform. Occasionally a patient is consciously or unconsciously a malingerer, who resents ever being sent back to work. Oc­ casionally the doctor is not certain that his judgment of his patient's fitness for work is accurate. In either case, the doctor may, if he chooses, certify incapacity and then refer the case to the Regional Medical Officer for second opinion. Apparently the extent to which the privilege is used varies greatly in different areas and also among the individual prac­ titioners. In a few instances doctors stated that they never "referred," feeling that the insurance society usually told the patient what the doctor had done, thus causing more trouble than if the doctor met the issue squarely with his 7 See

pp. 53/. for discussion of the function of the Regional Medical Officer.

His Role in Great Britain

51

patient. Some practitioners, in areas where no distrust of the society's discretion was complained of, expressed the view that a doctor as a matter of personal pride should handle his own difficult patients without relying on the Regional Medical Officer.8 Other doctors, however, felt that in the occasional uncomfortable situations (the doctors stress their infrequency), it was a welcome respite to turn the matter over to the government physician. In cases of permanent impairment, when it becomes obvious that the patient will never be able to resume his previous work, the definition of incapacity as "unable to follow his ordinary occupation" no longer serves. "Incapable of work" must then be construed by the doctor as meaning inability to perform any suitable kind of remunerative work. The society from which he obtains his cash benefit then allows him benefit for a reasonable period of adjust­ ment, during which he can equip himself for some substitute occupation. The member can appeal to the Ministry if he deems that he is unreasonably cut off from benefit under these circumstances. Sometimes the doctor is notified that a patient belongs to a society which gives "additional treatment benefits" afford­ ing therapy which the insurance doctor has advised. In such cases, if the patient requests it, he must recommend him for this benefit on the next regular certificate which the doctor has occasion to sign for him. In all cases, the doctor on request must give a written statement recommending ophthalmic treatment to any of his patients whom he deems to be in need of such specialist service. "Records of Illness" The insurance doctor is required to keep a medical record for each of his patients. The Regional Medical Officer must be given access to these records and has the right to sup8 See pp. 56#".

52

The Health Insurance Doctor

elementary information. Office visits and house calls must 3e recorded, and reasonably full clinical notes of the ailments treated must be included. It is not expected, however, that the doctor will record details of every trivial symptom or disturbance. The patient's file is sent to the Insurance Committee for forwarding to the appropriate physician in case of change of doctor. The record is handled as a confidential document by a responsible and specially deputized officer of the com­ mittee. The records are supposed to serve a twofold function: (i) to give each attending doctor an account of his patient's previous medical history; (2) to give the administrative agency acting through the Regional Medical Officer material on the basis of which prevention of illness can be planned. Incidentally, the record of office visits and house calls enables the Regional Medical staff to check up the occasional prac­ titioner who gives his patients conspicuously inadequate attention. 'Tuberculosis Cases Special forms must be used to advise the Tuberculosis Officer in each area of cases of both diagnosed and also sus­ pected tuberculosis. Terms of service provide that the same reporting may be required, at the discretion of the Minister of Health, for other diseases. If the Tuberculosis Officer decides that a patient needs treatment at a public dispensary or a sanatorium, and the patient accepts such treatment, the obligations for certificate of incapacity, as well as for medical care, are of course trans­ ferred to the Tuberculosis Officer for the period of such treatment. If merely general supervision is decided upon and the patient remains in his own doctor's hands, the practitioner is required to report periodically to the Tuberculosis Officer the progress of each case.

THE REGIONAL MEDICAL STAFF

S

INCE 1920 there has been a network of medical ad­ ministrative officers in connection with health insur­ ance.1 This system was set up and has been retained largely in response to demand from the health insurance doctors for medical referees to check certification cases. The Minister of Health is empowered, however, to require these officers to perform any duties that he deems suitable. England is divided into four divisions (Wales comprises an additional region), each of the regions being presided over by a Divisional Medical Officer. Leeds has the divisional office for the northeastern division, Manchester the divisional office for northwestern England, while both the southern divisional headquarters are in London. Each Divisional Officer has in turn a staff of Regional Medical Officers (commonly referred to as R.M.O.'s) and deputies attached to regional offices scattered throughout the division. The full-time staffs are supplemented by additional part-time medical referees drawn from the practising (and occasionally retired) medical men in the community. These part-time men do nothing but check certification. They are used during the "peak" periods of illness claims, when a great bunching of references occurs. They were added to the regular staff because it was the most economical way of meeting the demands of these periods, but many officers believe that the occasional administrative work of these practitioners has brought a most beneficial by-product: a more harmonious relationship between the medical men in different localities 1 A scheme of medical referees prepared by the Insurance Commission in 1914 with supporting grant voted in July was interrupted because of the War. See National Health Insurance Commission, 2nd Annual Report, 1914, cmd. 1422, p. 44.

54

The Health Insurance Doctor

and the permanent medical staff responsible for the ad­ ministration of the health insurance scheme. By permeating the practising profession with men cognizant of and sym­ pathetic with the problems of the Regional Medical Staff, cooperation of the panel practitioners and the administra­ tive officers has been promoted. More than half the time of the medical officers is given to medical examinations. Most of these examinations are made on request of the health insurance societies for advisory opinions about eligibility of insured persons for cash benefit because of incapacity for work. These advisory opinions do not control the judgment of the attending doctor. Even if a worker is declared fit by his referee, the practitioner may continue to certify his patient as incapacitated for work. Further, if the society decides to be guided by the referee's judgment and refuses to continue benefit, the worker may appeal to the Ministry. In actual practice in the vast majority of cases the opinion of the referee is accepted as final by both the worker and his society. Not all the requests for referee examination, or "refer­ ences" as they are called, are based on actual suspicion of malingering. Some are random selections from the lists of those on benefit for an extended period. The latter are in­ tended to serve constant notice to the insured workers that they must not exaggerate their ills. It is also considered wholesome that the occasional careless doctor should know that his reputation will suffer if too many of his patients are sent to the referee. Most of the referred persons are seen at the regional office. If the condition of the patient is alleged to require it, however, the medical officer goes to the worker's home. There has been a marked and constant decrease in the number of annual "references" in the last four years. This is widely attributed to improved relations between the medical profession and the health insurance societies, based on a

His Role in Great Britain

growing confidence that the doctors in general are scrupu­ lously fulfilling their certification responsibilities. It is also attributed in part to "good times," i.e. the fact that this has been a period of increasing prosperity with higher wage op­ portunities that promote especially prompt return to work, even by persons who would be better off for another day at home. The total number of references2 for both men and women was reduced by roughly 25 per cent in the four years 19321935 inclusive. There was a reduction of almost 29 per cent in the references for insured men, and approximately 23 per cent in the references for women. The total number of per­ sons "notified" in 1935 was the equivalent of only 2.7 per cent of the persons insured for cash as well as medical benefit. Quite a number of both the men and the women in this small group of "notified" persons (i.e. those who are asked to see the Regional Officer) either at once withdraw their request for benefit or fail to appear for examination. In the opinion of the medical referees, this is a result of fear of a "strange" doctor as often as it is an indication that they have been ex­ aggerating their ills. Certification difficulties are felt to be more pronounced with insured women than with the male workers, as is ob­ vious from the fact that women, although constituting only 35 per cent of the insured population, account for 64 per cent of the cases "notified." About 22 per cent of the men ex­ amined (who comprise just about 1½ per cent of the men insured) are stated to be fit for work, while nearly 32 per cent of the women (who comprise about 2 per cent of the women insured) are declared to be able to return to their jobs. This difference between male and female workers is at­ tributed by the Insurance Committee officials and by the Regional Medical Staff mainly to two factors: first, that most women are in industries of such low wage standards that the margin between the amount of their benefit and their 8

Information furnished by the Ministry of Health, London, August 1936.

56

The Health Insurance Doctor

wage is slight; they have less incentive than men to get back on the job promptly, and so are more prompted to "malin­ ger." This lack of incentive is pronounced in the case of married women who, at the end of the day's work, have the care of their homes and families awaiting them; second (and this is emphasized as the chief factor), that because of very low wages and consequent standard of living, many women are constantly in such poor physical condition that it is diffi­ cult for the attending doctor ever to certify them as "fit and capable" of work after they have been drawing benefit be­ cause of an acute illness. In health insurance, as in everything else, low standards of wages and living breed special difficulties. In addition to making medical examinations for decisions as to incapacity, the R.M.O. (Regional Medical Officer) is available to the health insurance doctor for consultation purposes. These consultations are for purely medical pur­ poses. The number of requests for such consultations is still very small, although growing slowly from year to year. The R.M.O. also enables the Ministry of Health to reach and aid persons found suffering from silicosis and from blind­ ness. He conducts a certain number of examinations as a courtesy to the Ministry of Labor to determine whether workers are in suitable physical condition to enter the in­ dustrial training centers conducted in connection with unem­ ployment insurance. He also inspects, for both insurance and non-insurance doctors, the records required under the Dangerous Drugs Regulations. The R.M.O. puts in about one-third of his time visiting the individual practitioners for administrative check-up on the keeping of records, the prescription of drugs, and the certification work. In this visiting work the effective R.M.O. is more an educator than a mere supervisor. He is, as one doctor to another, interpreting the insurance scheme to the practitioner, teaching him the importance of careful, eco­ nomical prescription, persuading him to greater exactness in

His Role in Great Britain

57

certification, helping him to simpler, more efficient record­ keeping—in short, constantly doing what many of them call the "spade work." Not only medical skill and medical repu­ tation, but also tact and a thorough understanding of homo sapiens are needed by the Regional Medical Officers. There is evidence in the functioning of the scheme that most of these experienced practitioners (the R.M.O. must have had ten years in health insurance practice) have been well selected. In 1935, the Regional Medical Staff in England made 232,457 incapacity examinations and 1,047 examinations for "consultation" purposes. In addition, the staff examined 23,365 unemployed persons to determine the question of physical fitness for entering Industrial Training Centers, 539 men and women suspected of suffering from silicosis and other special occupational diseases, and 225 persons applying for government pensions granted to the blind.3 * See 17th AnnualReportoi the Ministry of Health, 1935-1936, p. 186.

MEDICAL ATTITUDE TOWARD CERTIFICATION RESPONSIBILITIES HE British health insurance doctor is not disturbed today by his certification responsibilities. He accepts them as a basic part of his medical duties, exactly as he does the prescription of drugs for his patients. Indeed, the last three years have seen such an intensification of the ad­ ministrative drive against the "over-prescribing" of drugs by the health insurance doctors, that the average doctor, for the time being at least, is much more kindly disposed toward his certification responsibilities than toward his prescription duties. This was not always the case. Although most doctors seem to have forgotten it, many of them were so annoyed by the accusation made in 1931 by the Friendly Societies (i.e. the societies paying the cash benefits to incapacitated workers) that there was widespread laxity on the part of the doctors in their certification, that there was resentment about the whole question. The special governmental investigation prompted by this accusation resulted in a public report that was deemed by the medical profession to clear it of the charges. Since that time, relations between the societies and the British medical profession have become so harmonious that the episode is largely buried in oblivion. Indeed, the practitioner is actually surprised at the suggestion that he may be annoyed by having to "certify." In every part of England, responses were the same to queries about certification obligations. To wit: "All paper work was a nuisance but this was a necessary obligation, and through convenient forms, had been reduced to a minimum, and payment for this certification work was counted on in

His Role in Great Britain

59

computing the capitation fee." As to the assumption that the responsibility itself created a real problem, this simply was not a fact. The average run of workers did not put their doctor "on the spot" about certificates that would put them either on or off cash benefit. This occurred in only a small number of cases. Most workers, in fact, wanted to get back to work before they were really fit to do so. As to the oc­ casional "loafer" who never wanted to work, he was a nuisance, of course. But so was the man who was always wanting a tonic when the doctor knew he didn't need it. The doctor had to be man enough to handle his occasional "donothing" and his "medicine bottle addicts." And with the former group, at least the doctor who did not want to meet the issue, could always put the case before the Regional Medical Officer. The remarks of one1 of the British Medical Association's secretaries on the subject are pointed and bear repeating. "There is no 'certification problem' " said he, "in the sense in which you are discussing it. The idea that there is, is based on the wholly false assumption that most patients are struggling to stay home and draw benefit. That, of course, is utter nonsense. It's a relic of the same kind of thinking that pictured workmen's compensation as a social calamity on the ground that injured workers would become malingerers who would never want to work again." Everyone connected with health insurance frankly con­ cedes, to be sure, that under Britain's democratic system the attending practitioner tends to be more lenient in his certifi­ cation than he would be if on a salary and responsible only to the state, without direct personal relationship to the pa­ tient. Panel doctors generally agreed, moreover, that the medical referee is necessary both to bring into line that small percentage of lazy workers found everywhere and also to stiffen the occasional doctor who lacks moral courage. It is 1 Dr. Charles Hill, Health Insurance Secretary of the British Medical Association, in an interview June 1936.

6o

The Health Insurance Doctor

confirmed medical opinion in Britain that a free system, open to all doctors, in the nature of things calls for supervision. Queries as to the desirability of turning over the whole question of certification to the Regional Medical Ofiicers brought the same reply from practitioners everywhere. It was an obviously unworkable suggestion. The doctors would resent it as interference with their patients and it would be administratively impossible as a practical matter. No one but the attending doctors could know the condition of the sick workers. It would mean duplicating the whole practising profession by administrative officers who would personally examine all insured patients, and even then the attending doctor would have to be consulted in many cases. These opinions seem to represent the whole practising pro­ fession and not just the particular men in the various areas who expressed them, as is evidenced by the following state­ ment.2 "For your information, I have since 1924 been connected with the central work of the Insurance Acts Committee. For the last four years, I was chairman of the Panel Conference3 and during the whole of that time no suggestion has even been made by any Panel Committee, or by any individual insurance practitioner, that certification should be taken from the hands of the general practitioner. It is scarcely con­ ceivable that there is any real suggestion for this procedure without its having been brought at some time or another to the notice of the official body. I have no doubt that it is pos­ sible to find men who are in insurance practice who would say that they did not wish to continue to do the certification, but I very much doubt whether there is a single Panel Com2 Contained in a letter (June n, 1936) sent to the author by Dr. Herbert C. Jonas, chairman of the Insurance Acts Committee of the British Medical Association, the central committee of the British Medical Association, which is accepted by the British Government as the official representative agency of the practising health insurance doctor? See pp. 75Jf. 3 i._. the annual conference of representatives from the Panel Committee of doctors from each insurance area, not merely British Medical Association members but all practising health insurance doctors.

His Role in Great Britain

61

mittee in the British Isles which would have passed such a resolution for discussion at the conference, and I am perfectly certain that no conference that I have attended would have endorsed such a proposal. That should be sufficient evidence that any statements made to this effect on your side of the Atlantic are irresponsible statements of individual practi­ tioners, or, which is much more likely, have been culled from the pages of the Daily Mail or some other of our less re­ sponsible press." In two instances, the suspicion was voiced in good faith that the suggestion in America that "certification" should be the function of government employees, rested on a project of "work relief" for unemployed doctors!

DISCIPLINARY PROCEDURE AFFECTING THE HEALTH INSURANCE DOCTOR

T

HE doctor who is accused of violating his health insurance obligations must, of course, answer the charges, as must an insured person whose conduct is complained of by the doctor. Complaints about medical ser­ vice or certification are brought by the patient, the insurance society, the Insurance Committee, or the Panel Committee of doctors. The doctor who feels that an insured patient has unreasonably imposed upon him may in turn make formal accusation. Originally all complaints against an insurance doctor, except the accusation of extravagance in prescribing, were investigated by a subcommittee of the Insurance Com­ mittee. Now,1 however, if investigation by the Ministry in­ dicates a prima facie case of undue laxity in certification, extravagance in prescribing, or failure to keep proper clinical records, the matter is referred to the purely medical Panel Committee, representative of the health insurance doctors in his area. The doctor whose conduct is under question is given a statement of the specific charges and is invited to present his case orally or in writing, as he chooses. If the case involves the adequacy of medical records, a representative of the Minister is entitled to attend the hearing and give evidence. If the Panel Committee decides that the doctor has been guilty of lax certification or has failed to keep medical records properly, it so notifies the Minister (and the doctor in ques1 If an insured person appeals against the decision of his Approved Society to with­ hold sickness or disablement benefit, the doctor must attend the appeal and testify. He is paid a fee and allowed liberal travelling expenses. These appeals are infrequent.

His Role in Great Britain

63

tion) and recommends what amount, if any, should be with­ held from the practitioner's remuneration. If the Panel Com­ mittee decides that there has been extravagance in prescrib­ ing,2 the Insurance Committee, as well as the doctor and the Minister, must be notified. The standard which the Panel Committee is expected to use in determining whether there has been extravagant prescription is well summed up by the following statement made by the Appeals Board in an "excessive prescribing case :3 "In interpreting the term 'reasonably necessary,' allow­ ance must be made for the personal element. It is clear that, if insurance practitioners are to retain the independence of judgment that is necessary for the best treatment of their in­ sured patients, rigorous conformity with the view of the ma­ jority of the profession or of a committee of the profession must not be required of them; and so that the progress of medical science may not be checked, scope must be allowed for the exercise of initiative and for suitable experiment. The enforcement of stereotyped methods and standards of pre­ scribing would be prejudicial both to the immediate interests of patients under treatment and to the ultimate interest of insured persons generally. "There is, however, no inherent connection between the cost of drugs and their therapeutic efficiency. That exercise, therefore, of individual judgment which leads a practitioner in one class of cases to use a drug costing more than that which the majority of the profession would think more suitable, may equally, in other groups of cases, lead him to adopt less expensive forms of treatment than others, and thus, on balance, it will not seriously effect the average. Where particular instances show a proneness to the use of drugs more expensive than most practitioners think suitable 2 Extravagant prescribing investigations were turned over to the Panel Committee in 1913; certification cases in 1930; and clinical record cases in 1936. 3 Inquiries and Appeals under the Medical Benefit Regulations, Vol. I, part III, case IV5 at pp. 50-1.

64

The Health Insurance Doctor

for treatment of cases of the same kind, or in quantities sub­ stantially greater than other practitioners think suitable, and this is accompanied by a very high average cost of prescrib­ ing over the practice as a whole, only the strongest evidence can demonstrate that that high cost is due solely to the con­ scientious exercise of a discriminating judgment, which takes account not only of the patient's needs but also of considera­ tions of economy, so far as consistent with the patient's wel­ fare. In the absence of such proof the conclusion is inevi­ table that other causes have been at work, such as carelessness or indifference to cost, routine habits of prescribing par­ ticular combinations, doubtless appropriate for some cases but applied without discrimination to others, or errors of judgment arising through insufficient appreciation of a prac­ titioner's responsibilities; and that in the result the cost has exceeded what was reasonably necessary for adequate treat­ ment." The doctor in any one of the three situations investigated by the Panel Committee may appeal to the Minister against the committee's decision, and the Minister then must ap­ point a person or persons (not more than three, not officers of the Ministry, and at least one a doctor) to hear the appeal. If, moreover, the Minister is not satisfied with the Panel Committee's decision, he may appoint such person or per­ sons to determine the issue. If the case concerns extravagant prescribing, the Appeals Board's decision goes to the In­ surance Committee, which in turn makes a report to the Minister. The Minister then takes under advisement the recom­ mendation of the Panel Committee, the Appeals Board, or the Insurance Committee, as the case may be. Before deciding upon a penalty, the Minister may and usually does consult with an Advisory Committee. In "overprescribing" and "clinical record" cases, this will be the Medical Advisory Committee, composed of the Chief Med­ ical Officer (or deputy), two other medical officers, and three

His Role in Great Britain

65

practitioners who either are or have been insurance doctors. The latter must be selected from a panel4 offered by the Insurance Acts Committee of the British Medical Associa­ tion. If a certification matter has been at issue, the Minister may take counsel instead from an Advisory Committee of thirteen (appointed by himself), representative of Ap­ proved Societies and Insurance Committees, as well as in­ surance doctors. Before deciding to withhold any penalty sum from a prac­ titioner5 who has not had his case before the Ministry on appeal, the Minister allows him to protest either orally or in writing. If the doctor elects to protest orally, a physician from a list or panel furnished by the Insurance Acts Com­ mittee sits as one of the persons who conducts the hearing for the Minister, and both the Insurance Committee and the Panel Committee may have representatives present. The Minister himself ultimately decides what penalty, if any, shall be inflicted. There is no appeal from this decision. The body which in the first instance investigates the com­ plaints other than the three types which go to the Panel Committee is the medical service subcommittee of the In­ surance Committee of the area.6 This subcommittee has a chairman and from six to ten members and is composed of an equal number of doctors and insured persons (at least one must be a woman). Normally one of the doctors is appointed by the local Medical Committee7 and the others by the Panel Committee. If any of these appointments are not made, the Insurance Committee selects a representative doctor for the vacancy. The chairman must be one of the "neutral" members of the Insurance Committee, someone not immediately in4 This

is a committee representative of the panel practitioners. reality from the Insurance Committee, which in turn deducts from the next check of the practitioner in question. 6 See Introduction, p. 5 supra. 7 A committee representative of all doctors in the area (often one committee serves as both the Medical and the Panel Committee). 5 In

66

The Health Insurance Doctor

volved in the scheme, i.e. not either a doctor, druggist, in­ sured person, or insurance society officer. Complaints to be heard by the medical subcommittee include charges of neglect, improper fees, and similar mis­ conduct, as well as illegal certification.8 Complaint made by one doctor against another involving medical service to in­ sured persons, at the desire of the doctors involved, may be settled by either the Panel or Medical Committee, instead of being referred to the medical service subcommittee. The Insurance Committee may refer the matter to its own sub­ committee if it chooses to do so. If the former is done, the doctors must be prepared to abide by the decisions, as such committees have no power to enforce their decisions. Com­ plaints made by the doctor against an insured person go to the medical service subcommittee, and the Insurance Com­ mittee may fine an insured person and even suspend his medical benefit for imposition upon his doctor. Complaints against a doctor must be made ordinarily within six weeks of the episodes upon which they rest. Per­ mission of the Minister of Health is required if more than two months have elapsed, unless the accused person con­ sents to the delayed investigation. If a complaint involves both a doctor and a pharmacist or is concerned with a pharmaceutical question, a "joint services subcommittee" (composed of two pharmacists, two doctors, and two insured persons) makes the original in­ vestigation. The proceedings of the subcommittees are governed by rules adopted by the local Insurance Committee and ap­ proved by the Ministry; these rules must provide for due notice to all persons concerned and for exchange of the state­ ments made by both the accusing and defending parties. Complaints must be specific and detailed. No generalizations 8 e.g. giving a certificate when he has not seen and examined the patient within twenty-four hours. See p. 49 supra. If, however, the Panel Committee is investigating the certification policy of a doctor, the Medical Service subcommittee may not act on a certification complaint involving him.

His Role in Great Britain

67

are permitted. The hearing must be private and no paid attorneys are permitted, although the committee may au­ thorize non-professional, unpaid assistance. Usually the witnesses may be present only when actually testifying. Insurance Committees have funds available for paying travelling and out-of-pocket expenses incurred by the doctor in attending a hearing of the medical service subcommittee, and unless special reasons exist for not allowing such ex­ penses, the doctor may expect to be reimbursed. The subcommittee's report to the Insurance Committee must include the facts it regards (1) as established and (2) as inferable from those established; it gives (3) in addition, a recommendation of any action it believes should be taken. If it is recommended that part of the practitioner's re­ muneration be withheld, the committee is expected to name the suggested penalty sum, if they are all agreed, or, failing this, at least to indicate whether or not the sum withheld should be substantial. The Insurance Committee must accept the subcommittee's finding of actual facts, but not its conclusions with reference to those facts. For example, a certain subcommittee reported that a doctor had been guilty of neglect. This was a judg­ ment or conclusion with which the larger Insurance Com­ mittee was privileged to disagree. The further statements in the subcommittee's reports, however, (to wit, that the in­ sured person called the doctor at nine in the morning, again at noon and twice in the evening, etc., and that the doctor did not visit him in response to these calls until two days and nights had passed), were findings of facts that the Insurance Committee was obliged to accept. After considering the report of the medical subcommittee on a case involving a charge against a doctor of neglect of a patient, the Insurance Committee may in its discretion pro­ ceed to penalize the doctor in several ways. It may require him to pay, usually by deduction from his quarterly check,

68

The Health Insurance Doctor

any expenses9 other than those of the subcommittee, to which the Insurance Committee or the insured person or his family, have been put because of the doctor's neglect. For example, if the insured person, because of neglect by his panel doctor, has had to call another physician, the committee may re­ quire the insurance doctor to pay such physician's fees. Or the committee may, after consultation with the Panel Committee of doctors, require the doctor to reduce his in­ sured list below the usual limit, on the ground that he has demonstrated that he is not capable of giving adequate treatment to so large a number. It may report to the Ministry of Health that the doctor has not fulfilled his insurance obligations and is not entitled to full remuneration. Finally, and this of course would be done only in the face of the gravest misconduct, it may report to the Minister that the doctor should be denied the privilege of health insurance practice.10 The doctor is allowed to appeal to the Minister from a decision of the Insurance Committee in any case except that which terminates with a recommendation that his name be stricken from the Medical List, i.e. that he be denied the right to insurance practice. Appeal from the latter recommenda­ tion is automatic: the Minister is obliged to hold a formal judicial inquiry. In the case of these appeals, the Minister may assess costs against either party. He may dismiss an appeal if he decides after considering the application that no reasonable grounds for appeal exist. He may, moreover, decide the appeal with­ out a formal hearing. As a rule, however, he appoints one, two, or three persons to hear the appeal—which is usually conducted in the locality of the dispute—and to present a report. If the doctor has been found guilty of "negligence," 9

Medical Benefit Regulations 35 (2) (b). (Stat. Rules and Orders,1936, p. 1903.) Literally, "that the continuance of the doctor on the medical list is, in their opinion, prejudicial to the efficiency of the service." 10

His Role in Great Britain

69

one of the Appeals Board must be a doctor selected, as in cases investigated by the Panel Committee, from the panel11 list presented by the Insurance Acts Committee of the British Medical Association. "Negligence" is defined as "Failure to exercise reasonable skill and care in the treatment of a patient; failure to visit or treat a patient when neces­ sary; failure to order or supply any necessary medicine or appliances for the use of the patient; failure to advise the patient as to the steps which should be taken to obtain treat­ ment which is not within the scope of the Terms of Service." Appeal proceedings are judicial proceedings similar to British arbitration proceedings, i.e. witnesses may be sub­ poenaed, parties examined on oath, and points of law may be referred to the court for decision. Lawyers are permitted on both sides. The Appeals Board at its discretion may rehear all the facts or just those at specific issue. Contentions and facts not presented at the original hearing may not be pre­ sented at the appeal without special permission of the appeal body; this permission is seldom granted. The decision of the Minister as to guilt or innocence is made after he has con­ sidered the report of the Appeals Board and is final.12 As in cases originating with the Panel Committee, if the practitioner condemned by the medical subcommittee has not appealed, he is allowed a hearing by the Ministry before penalization by the latter. If an accusation of "negligence" has been at issue, the Medical Advisory Committee13 must be consulted before action is taken. In other disputes involving a doctor, consultation with this Advisory Committee is optional and, as in matters investigated by the Panel Com­ mittee, as a matter of practice is usual. Such cases are when the doctor has: (1) charged fees to insured persons; (2) issued 11 See note 4 supra, i.e. the panel submitted by the Insurance Acts Committee from which members of the Medical Advisory Committee are selected. 12 The Panel Committee is not entitled to be represented at the hearings of appeals. The practice is, however, for appeal tribunals to permit such representation. 13 This was added by the Regulations of 1927. For membership of Advisory Commit­ tee, see pp. 64-5 supra.

7°

The Health Insurance Doctor

certificates irregularly; (3) failed to fulfill his obligations to the Regional Medical Staff. Determination of Penalties

The usual penalty is a "surcharge," i.e. a deduction from the doctor's remuneration. Literally, the Ministry deducts this from the sum allotted to the Insurance Committee of the area in which the penalized doctor practises. The com­ mittee in turn deducts it from the next quarterly check of the doctor in question. The amount of penalty is related, of course, to the addi­ tional cost which the doctor's misconduct imposes upon the funds of the insurance scheme. It is not, however, rigidly adjusted to the figure which the Panel Committee judges to be the measure of such cost. In fact, it is usually considerably less than this figure. To quote from a pertinent decision of the Appeals Board:14 "Provision for deduction is largely in­ tended to act as a deterrent; extravagance while its existence may be indisputable is nevertheless very difficult to bring to a precise measurement in pounds, shillings, and pence." And again: "Such deductions are to be regarded as primarily deter­ rent in their object, and for this purpose considerations must be taken into account which cannot be satisfactorily evaluat­ ed by any purely arithmetical process, e.g. considerations as to the good faith of the doctor in actions which perhaps were mistaken."15 Exclusion from Insurance Practice

The suggestion that a practitioner be denied the right to insurance practice, which, as previously stated, may come from an Insurance Committee after a subcommittee in­ vestigation and report, may also emanate from either of two 14 Inquiries and Appeals under Medical Benefit Regulations, Vol. I, part III, case IV, cmd. 8549 (1917). 16 Harris and Sack, Medical Insurance Practice, p. 101.

His Role in Great Britain

71

medical bodies, the local Medical Committee or the local Panel Committee in an insurance area. On receiving such a recommendation, the Minister must, and in certain situations18 may, set up a Committee of En­ quiry, consisting of an attorney and twopractising physicians. This committee holds a formal judicial hearing, with wit­ nesses on oath and (usually) legal counsel on both sides. The resulting report in turn must be referred to the Advisory Committee of doctors for consideration and recommendation before the Minister can take action. Further, the doctor is permitted to present to the Minister written evidence as to his character and his professional reputation. A doctor who is thus removed by the Minister from his local panel or medical list may not again engage in health insurance practice or assist a health insurance practitioner anywhere in Britain without first getting permission from the Minister. The Minister's decision is final and there is no right of appeal to the courts. Frequently, the Minister determines upon lesser penalties, instead of complete removal from the medical list. He may order temporary suspension and probation, or, the usual penalty for most offenses committed, the withholding of part of the doctor's normal remuneration. The customary penalty sums withheld range from $5 to $500, although occasionally the amounts are smaller or larger. In summary, it may be said that the significant fact about the disciplinary control of the health insurance doctor is that representative medical opinion plays a most important role in all its procedure. Thus complaints are investigated in the first instance by either a purely medical or a semi-medical body (the Panel Committee or the medical subcommittee of the Insurance Committee); in appeal proceedings on Panel Committee cases or cases involving negligence a medical representative is a member of the board; and the Ministry of 16 When such recommendation comes from some other source or when the doctor is convicted of crime.

72

The Health Insurance Doctor

Health may sit in judgment upon the doctor's performance of his medical duties only after consultation with still another representative medical committee (the Medical Advisory Committee). Further, when the right of the doctor to health insurance practice is at issue, penalization may come only after formal trial by a predominantly medical board (three members, two of whom are physicians) supplemented by consultation with an Advisory Council of doctors (i.e. the Medical Advisory Committee). All the medical men involved in administration of the disciplinary procedure are either selected directly by practis­ ing physicians or by their representative committees, or are chosen by administrators from lists drawn up by the British Medical Association's Insurance Acts Committee. Over nine-tenths of the latter committee are representatives elected by the health insurance doctors; the remaining mem­ bers are officers of the British Medical Association. The complaints registered against health insurance doctors have been very few in number in rural areas. Even in London and the other large cities where most of the abuses have oc­ curred, there have been surprisingly few formal accusations. This seems to be caused not exclusively by the native wicked­ ness of a few of the urban practitioners, but in part by the fact that the insured person in some of the villages and the rural areas finds it harder to bring charges against the doctor. Often the latter is the only man available. Still more often, the insured worker lives in such close proximity that he can­ not get away from his doctor. He is, therefore, naturally reluctant to enter formal complaint against him. The County of Buckingham, with an insured population of 110,000, has had only sixty medical service cases in the last eighteen years, and most of them in the earlier part of the period. Derbyshire, with a quarter of a million insured, has averaged about two complaints a year over the entire twenty-five year period of the act's functioning. The City of Manchester, with an insured group of from 320,000 to

His Role in Great Britain

73

350,000, has totalled 127 formal complaints by patients in the twenty-five years of health insurance.17 Frequently the same doctors were involved year after year. In 1934 eighty-one, and in 1935 a total of one hundred and one, English health insurance doctors were penalized by having part of their remuneration withheld. The penalties totalled£626 6s. ($3,131.25) in I934and£779 15s. ($3,898.75) in 1935. The misconduct established was as follows: Specific Misconduct

Number of Cases '934 1935

Negligence18 in medical service Failure to keep proper medical records Failure to give information to the R.M.O. Violation of medical certification rules Failure to return medical records to Insurance Committees Improper charging of fees to insured persons Combination of violation of medical certification rules and improper charging of fees to in­ sured persons Failure to arrange for treatment of patients dur­ ing absence from practice Leaving practice without giving notice to Insur­ ance Committee of withdrawal Issuing prescriptions to persons in dispensing list Refusing R.M.O. access to medical records Excessive prescribing *Plus ι pending.

14

6

10

39

15

18 16

6

13

16

4

2

I

—

I

—

I

—

—

I

—

I

3

5*

The negligence cases, which are in one sense the most serious, as compared with the record in 1932 and 1934 are given below: 1932 22 1933 *934 1935

8 H 6

17 Fifteen in the years 1931-1935 involving, however, only nine doctors; six in 1935, involving, however, only two doctors. Information furnished by Mr. Dewhurst, assis­ tant secretary of the Manchester Insurance Committee, July 1936. 18 See first paragraph, p. 69 supra, for conduct constituting negligence.

74

The Health Insurance Doctor

The largest single amount withheld from one doctor was in 1934 and $500 in 1935; $250 was the penalty in an­ other 1934 case; $125 was deducted in several instances in both years. The great majority of penalties, however, in both 1934 and 1935 were in amounts of less than $25.19 Between 1913 and March 31, 1936, there were 99 formal charges involving the removal of doctors from the panels, or, as it is termed in the British reports, "Representations that the continuance of doctors on the medical list would be prejudicial to the efficiency of the insurance medical service."20

$300

19

Ministry of Health, 16th Annual Report, pp. 255-6; 17th Annual Report, pp. 196-8. the case 0/ the first 30 Representations, 20 of the Inquiries resulted in removal of the doctor from the panel (in one case the Insurance Committee was authorized to re­ store the doctor in a year). In one case the doctor was permitted to resign; in three cases he was fined; in one case he was found innocent and in the remaining 5 cases no official action was taken. The removals were for such offences as (1) absence without arranging for a deputy; (2) dispensing drugs under an assumed name; (3) charging for medicines; (4) intoxication during office and visiting hours; (5) signing certificates without examination; (6) neglect of patients; (7) improper financial connection with a druggist. 30 In

ATTITUDE OF THE BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION AND PANEL DOCTORS The Part Played by the British Medical Association

I

N keeping with the democratic principles of British political and industrial life, an agency of the practising medical profession for "collective negotiation" activiely participates in the Health Insurance Administration. The agency which is accepted by the Minister of Health as rep­ resentative of the health insurance doctors is the already mentioned Insurance Acts Committee of the British Medical Association. All rulings which affect the remuneration of the panel physicians or any of their obligations under the health insurance act are made after consultation with this com­ mittee. The Ministry is pledged, moreover, to this procedure as a matter of permanent policy. The Insurance Acts Committee is a central committee composed of representatives of all parts of the country. The representative member in each area keeps in constant touch with the local Panel Committee and with the local Medical Committee when there are two separate committees. By frequent meetings in London, the central committee mem­ bers form a clearing house of information about conditions of health insurance practice throughout the country. In addition, the Insurance Acts Committee calls an annual conference of representatives of the Panel and Medical Com­ mittees of all insurance areas. These representatives need not be members of the Medical Association. All health insurance problems which are of interest to the profession are debated at these conferences. All suggestions forwarded by the local Committees (Panel and Medical) are discussed and resolu-

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The Health Insurance Doctor

tions are passed upon all subjects affecting the medical pro­ fession in its relation to health insurance. These resolutions are accepted as binding upon the Insurance Acts Committee. Thus the committee makes itself in as real a sense as possible the mouthpiece of the great body of insurance practitioners. The participation of the medical profession in the dis­ ciplinary procedure affecting the health insurance doctor has been outlined. It remains to repeat and to stress the fact that the Insurance Acts Committee appoints the panel of doctors from which selections must be made to the boards which hear appeals and to the Advisory Committee that figures in the final disciplinary procedure of the Ministry previously described. From this panel are chosen also the doctors who sit with Ministry officials in hearing the oral protests of a doctor before penalization by the Minister. The Insurance Acts Committee thus has the ultimate responsibility of choos­ ing the medical men who guard the interests of the profession in the final stages of the penal machinery of the health in­ surance scheme. The Insurance Acts Committee is, however, much more than a negotiating and protective agency for the individual practitioners. It is dedicated to the policy of cooperation with the government officials in making the social insurance system as fine and effective as possible. It furnishes efficient machinery for detection and correction of friction points and other dangers inherent in the general system. Indeed, too much could scarcely be said for the part which the organized medical profession has played, especially in the last twelve to fifteen years, in the evolution of the British social insurance scheme into the smooth system it has become. It would have been easy for the Insurance Acts Committee to take a narrow view of its obligations. Instead, it has adopted as a fundamental principle the doctrine that the interests of the profession can be well served only by making the insurance scheme achieve the social objectives which prompted the enactment of social insurance legislation. To

His Role in Great Britain

77 that end the Insurance Acts Committee has worked unceas­ ingly to educate the profession to an appreciation of (i) the importance of a scheme which provides the bulk of the work­ ing population with security in time of illness; (2) the sound­ ness or the democratic principle which opened health insur­ ance practice on equal terms to the whole profession; (3) the solemn obligation which the profession, in return for this privilege, is called upon to shoulder by performing with scrupulous care the key services to the scheme upon which its functioning rests; (4) the need of sympathetic understand­ ing of the difficulties confronting the Insurance Committees as well as those of the Approved Societies which dispense the cash benefits; and, finally, (5) the fact that the dignity and well being of the whole medical profession are involved in the task of keeping health insurance practice on the highest pos­ sible professional level. Differences in the standard of health insurance practice and other practice, separate offices and "side doors" for in­ surance patients, and other discriminatory practices of the early bickering years have been stamped out, largely through the efforts of the Insurance Acts Committee.1 In similar fashion, relations between the Approved Societies and the profession have so changed that the armed neutrality and mutual distrust which characterized the early period have been replaced by friendly cooperation and mutual respect. The committee has been working hard to aid the adminis­ trative agencies in their drive against the excessively high cost of drug benefit, which has been the chief administrative concern of the last few years. In every region representatives of the committee stand solidly back of the Ministry and the network of administrative officials in their efforts to elim­ inate waste and improve the insurance services. It is also looking toward expansion of the scheme in the near future 1 A lion's share of the credit due the Insurance Acts Committee is attributed by practitioners in all parts of England to Dr. Guy Dain, chairman of the Insurance Acts Committee for eleven years (1924 to November 1935).

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The Health Insurance Doctor

and is recommending particularly the extension of services to the families of the insured workers. 11 is urging medical schools to include broad courses on health insurance in the required curriculum, so that doctors may practise with an apprecia­ tion of the social and economic background of the health insurance scheme. The committee has successfully sponsored in several areas the organization of the free "family doctor" medical services which are publicly provided for the destitute along lines similar to that in effect for the insured population. Free choice of doctor is permitted and the practitioners are paid on a capitation basis, thus giving the dependent poor the same relation to their family doctors that is enjoyed by the insured workers. Why the Panel Doctors Approve of cTheir Health Insurance Arrangements The change in attitude of the medical profession from bitter hostility when legislation was being discussed in 1909 and 1910 to that of enthusiastic approval after years of actual experience with health insurance is attributed by practi­ tioners to a variety of causes. Dominant among such causes they concede to be the great economic improvement which health insurance brought to doctors. Few human beings are indifferent to such improvement and it is not surprising that medical prejudice against legislation which resulted in greatly increasing medical incomes should tend to disappear. Panel doctors in city, town, and shire emphasized this in­ crease in medical income, estimating that income from prac­ tice among wage-earning groups had doubled and even trebled as a result of health insurance.2 2 There is a mistaken assumption widely entertained in the United States that the practice included in the health insurance scheme had all been on a contract or "club" practice basis before the scheme was adopted. In fact, as the B.M.A. protested in 1912, club practice had not even reached persons of more than £2 a week earning capacity, while the act included all manual workers and non manuals up to £3 a week. See the 1912-1913 Report of the National Insurance Commissioners, 1913, cmd. 6907, Part I, pp. 124-57.

His Role in Great Britain

79

Almost as important as the betterment in amount of in­ come is the regularity of income which the insurance arrange­ ments have brought the profession. The fact was stressed repeatedly that doctors appreciate security as much as any­ one. The steady quarterly check from the insurance com­ mittee, in bad employment periods as in good (for health insurance contribution arrears are excused when caused by unemployment), in intervals of good health as in time of epidemic, serves as an income backlog to the practitioners. This stability apparently is valued by the doctors whose practice is only partly among workers' families as well as by those who draw all their patients from wage-earning groups. Freedom from'the nuisance and bother as well as from the uncertainties and losses of bill collecting, was universally welcome to town and country practitioners. It would be unjustified, however, to lay undue emphasis upon the economic factor. The panel doctor with real profes­ sional feeling (and this means more of the panel than not) approves of health insurance because he has found that it greatly improves his relations with his patients. Health insurance, he has discovered, removes a barrier which in "private practice," among low-incomed groups, stands in the way of full realization of the fine relationship that "doctor and patient" should achieve. Undeterred by the menace of a bill which he could not afford as an individual, the insured patient can see his doctor when he needs to. Similarly the panel doctor, without concern as to how much the patient can pay, and without courting suspicion that he is "running up bills," can supervise his patient as he deems best. As one practitioner put it: "You have no idea how pleasant it is for me to be able to drop in as often as I like on my poor patients who are chronics. In the old days I couldn't possibly have done it. Either I'd have had to charge them for calls, which wouldn't have been honest, or else I'd have had them feeling no end uncomfortable and grateful to me for not charging them. Now we meet on the finest level. I'm their

8o

The Health Insurance Doctor

doctor and paid for and that settles that. So I can step in for a minute or two every day if I like and it does us both a lot of good. It's a grand profession, medicine, if you give it a chance." And another: "Health insurance has transferred to the authorities the 'business' part of private practice and left us free to practise our profession, which, after all, is medicine, not bill-collecting." Capitation is believed by the practitioners generally to be the only satisfactory basis of health insurance remuneration. This is partly because they have found it to be administra­ tively satisfactory, in contrast to the fee system's problems, typified by the Manchester experience. At the same time, capitation preserves what British doctors deem to be the desirable elements of the private practice fee basis relation­ ship. These elements they list as selection of doctor by the patient and patient by doctor, the right to sever this rela­ tionship if it proves unsatisfactory, and variation of remuner­ ation of the doctor in accordance with his ability to attract and satisfy patients. A "salary" basis would, of course, be attractive from the standpoint of certain purely administra­ tive needs, for the authorities could control the type of ser­ vice rendered by dismissal of the doctors who did not main­ tain adequate standards. Such a basis, however, doctors find basically objectionable for two main reasons. It would re­ strict health insurance practice to selected appointees rather than opening it to the profession, and would, general medical opinion is convinced, tend to lower the average standard of professional service by removing the economic stimulus which "keeps the doctor on his toes." Capitation, in brief, while obviating on the one hand the difficulties which the Manchester and Salford doctors en­ countered to their sorrow,3 has the advantageous element of the fee system of penalizing the doctors who neglect their patients, for the capitation sums move with the patients away from such medical men to more conscientious practitioners. 3 See

pp. 41-5 supra.

His Role in Great Britain

81

The doctors find further virtue in capitation, virtue which is of importance to the community as well as to the individual doctor and his patients. They maintain that capitation promotes "good medicine" because it is a system of remun­ eration based on responsibility for the care needed by patients rather than on items of service rendered to patients. It is therefore to the doctor's interest to keep his patients well. Under the fee system, the practitioner's financial interests lie wholly in the reverse direction. With capitation, if a pa­ tient gets seriously ill, the doctor as well as the patient suffers for it. Scrupulous attention to the minor things which lead to the serious is as important and time-saving to the doctor as to his patient, while in no way reducing the doctor's in­ come. In short, the doctors have found in capitation a direct stimulus to preventive medicine.4 A homely illustration of this stimulus is embodied in the little printed card which one of the leading panel doctors in Buckinghamshire gives each person who joins his medical list. It reads, "If you get a cold, come to see me. Let me decide whether it is important. I should rather treat a cold than pneumonia." Another improvement brought by health insurance and emphasized by doctors is the elimination of the lowest ele­ ment of the profession. This, doctors of long experience explain, is not caused exclusively by their elimination through the disciplinary control previously described, although that process undoubtedly has removed a substantial number of the grossly unfit practitioners. It is attributed also to the suc­ cessful competition of better men who, through health in­ surance, now offer their services to the lowest paid workers. Before the institution of panel practice, in the days when doctors had to collect for their services directly from their poorest patients, apparently very few medical men of stand4 See emphasis of this stimulus to preventive medicine entailed by health insurance practice, in th¢. Annual Re-ports of ChiefMedicalOfficer of the MinistryofHealth, 19191925.

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The Health Insurance Ooctor

ing would endure such conditions as were indicated by "Eastside" London practice.5 The 1914 report of the National Health Insurance Commission refers to the fact that some of the poorest boroughs actually had no resident doctors at all before the health insurance law and that all of the poor districts had been most inadequately served. To put it in the words of a distinguished London practitioner of more than thirty years' personal experience with such conditions: "In the old days, well trained, fine young doctors could not stomach practice in these areas. All too often it meant the hardest kind of work and either no fees or a shilling or two, raised sometimes by the patient's pawning the blankets from his bed. Health insurance changed all that. Now the worst type of doctor, who was the usual Eastside practitioner, is a thing of the past. In some cases he has been found guilty of gross abuse and has been denied the right to insurance prac­ tice. For the most part, however, he has been competed out of existence. Good medical men are now in the field and poor people appreciate decent service as much as anyone else and will take it when they can get it." Search for a health insurance practitioner who would be willing to exchange his insurance arrangements for those of American "private practice" was unrewarding. There may be such a person6 but diligent investigation in towns and shires failed to reveal him. Men can be found everywhere, although surprisingly few on the whole, who will complain, or "grouse," as they term it, about this or that detail of in­ surance practice, but all its basic principles are universally approved by the men who speak from experience. Their only real objection is that there is too little health insurance—i.e. that not enough of the available health services have been organized on the insurance basis, and not enough people are included in this part of the social insurance program. 6

The very poor never joined "medical clubs." several well known practitioners were willing to lay substantial wagers that "no such foolhardy soul would be found in the whole of Britain." 6 Although

His Role in Great Britain

83

Extensions of Health Insurance Recommended by the British Medical Association The organized medical profession is, as stated, sponsoring amendment of the Health Insurance Act to provide medical benefit for the dependent families of the insured workers. For this proposal there is strong lay support. Indeed, agita­ tion for such a change has been widespread for many years. It has long been quite widely conceded that lack of medical service for workers' families is one of the great shortcomings of the British scheme, placing the latter in uncomfortable contrast with the systems on the Continent. The Royal Com­ mission of 1924, however, did not consider it even a proper health insurance benefit, stating "Medical opinion for de­ pendents should form an integral part of any scheme of gen­ eral health service, administered by the local authorities."7 A recent government document adds a degree of current official sanction to the urging of the medical profession for "family benefits" in the health insurance scheme. A Scottish Departmental Committee concluded in the summer of 1936 an inquiry8 into the functioning health services, with a strong recommendation that such benefits be extended in the im­ mediate future. There is a fairly strong tradition that things which are under consideration for the United Kingdom as a whole are "tried out" in Scotland. General medical and lay opinion has it that the action of this Scottish body is prophetic of what may be expected in the course of time from the Ministry at Whitehall. In 1936, however, more official interest seemed to be given to the other proposed extension, i.e. the broadening of medical benefit itself to include specialists' services. The lack of specialists' service and laboratory analysis service has been governmentally recognized as a major limitation of 7 Report of the Royal Com. on National Health Insurance, 1926, cmd. 2596, p. 163. ' 8 Published as the Report of the Committee on Scottish Health Services, Department of Health for Scotland, 1936, cmd. 5204.

S4

The Health Insurance Doctor

medical benefit practically since the institution of the scheme. In 1914 provision for beginning such services was actually included in the budget, and moneys were voted by Par­ liament.9 This project, however, was lost in the World War activities and continued to be lost in the post-war adjustment difficulties. After the organization of the Ministry of Health in 1919, the ChiefMedical Officer's annual reports saw to it by repeated emphatic reference that the question at least was not forgotten. The Royal Commission on National Health Insurance of 1924, moreover, placed specialist, con­ sultant, and laboratory services at the head of the list of im­ mediate statutory additions required for the health insurance scheme.10 This recommendation, however, was not put into effect. The organized medical profession now is actively urging the "modernizing" of medical benefit. This proposal involves the participation of a group of physicians who are not now in health insurance practice, rather than, as in the case of the "family benefits" proposal, an extension of the group served on an insurance basis by the panel doctors now practising. Difference of opinion about the details of this extension concededly exist, but the organized profession, at least, is be­ ginning to sponsor concrete proposals. A special committee of the British Medical Association in the spring of 1936 worked over the questions involved in initiating the broadening of medical benefit beyond family doctor service. In June 1936, it presented a report in which its general conclusions were summarized in the following resolutions: i. That consultant, specialist, and pathological services should be available as an integral part of medical benefit under the National Health Insurance Acts—that is, for all those in­ sured persons entitled to medical benefit. 9 Great Britain Royal Com. on National Health Insurance, 1926, cmd. 2596, p. 123. 10 ibid., p. 173.

His Role in Great Britain 2. That such services should be available only on the recom­ mendation of the general practitioner in attendance. 3. That there should be free choice of consultant, specialist, and pathologist by the general practitioner in attendance. 4. That in the provision of pathological facilities use should be made of the services of pathologists working in private laboratories and of pathologists working in the laboratories of voluntary and council hospitals, the pathologist receiving ade­ quate remuneration for his work. 5. That in areas where a pathological service is provided for the community by the local authority the use of this service by insured persons should continue, the pathological services under this scheme supplementing and augmenting the local authority facilities so as to make the pathological services available to insured persons complete. 6. That the consultant and specialist services in medicine, surgery, gynecology, and the special branches should be such examination and advice as can be given at a single consultation, together with a report, where necessary, for the information of the attending practitioner. 7. That the inclusion of the name of a medical practitioner in the list of available consultants, specialists, and pathologists should be subject to satisfaction of one or more of the following criteria: (a) that he has held hospital or other appointment affording special opportunities for acquiring special skill and experience of the kind required for the performance of the ser­ vice rendered, and has had actual recent practice in perform­ ing the service rendered or services of a similar character; or (b) that he has had special academic or post-graduate study of a subject which comprises the service rendered, and has had actual recent practice as aforesaid; or (c) that he is generally recognized by other practitioners in the area as having special proficiency and experience in a subject which comprises the service rendered. 8. That the decision in regard to the eligibility of practi­ tioners for inclusion in and continuance on the list of available consultants should rest with a properly constituted profes­ sional body. 9. That the list of available consultants, specialists, and pathologists should be divided into two sections, the first con­ sisting of the names of those who are not engaged in general practice in any form but practise exclusively as consultants,

85

86

The Health Insurance Doctor specialists, or pathologists, the second consisting of the names of those not so practising. 10. That the remuneration for the work should be on a per item of service basis. 11. That the organization of such services should be on lines strictly comparable to those obtaining in private practice to­ day, the consultant receiving the patient in his own consulting rooms or attending at the patient's home, as the case may be.11

If the essence of these conclusions were adopted, obviously a mere first step would be taken in the direction of making "specialist service" a normal part of the insurance benefits. This first step, moreover, does not propose a step into com­ pletely untried territory. The British Medical Association has been sponsoring such a scheme on a voluntary basis.12 It circulates among the members a List of Consultants in Londonwho are willing for a greatly reduced fee (one guinea, $5.25) to see insured persons and others in proved similar economic circumstances, and to give "such examination and advice as can be given at a single consultation, together with a report, when necessary, for the information of the private practitioner. The names included in the list are arranged under the following headings: medicine; surgery, obstetrics and gynecology; ophthalmology; dermatology; oto-rhinolaryngology; pathology, radiology; physical medicine." The organized profession is well aware that in this age of specialization in medicine, lack of specialist services in the health insurance set-up is a lack so serious as to promote development of alternative public response (chiefly through county action) to the need of the workers for more than mere "family doctor" services. It is equally aware that the failure of health insurance to provide family benefits also is stimulating the growth of u Published in "Medical Insurance Service Week by Week," supplement to the British Medical Journal, June 27, 1936, p. 358. 12 Just as, pending addition of the "family medical benefits," it has sponsored vol­ untary insurance at very low cost, for the dependents of insured workers. See p. 41 supra.

His Role in Great Britain

87

alternative public services to meet the medical needs of the workers' families. The risk of unacceptable arrangements from the medical point of view, which "alternate" public action (i.e. County Council Medical Services extensions) might bring, is a recognized risk in medical circles. Content with the medical service pattern worked out in the health insurance scheme, the British Medical Association is doing what it can to extend this pattern.13 13 Formal proposals were made by the British Medical Association for coverage ex­ tensions and amplification of health insurance services, in its 1930 Proposals for a General Medical Servicefor the Nation. See Supplement, British Medical Journal, 1930, pp. 155-82.

HOSPITALS AND THE HEALTH INSURANCE PROGRAM

T

HE omission of hospital benefits not only in the present British health insurance scheme, but even in the plans for its immediate future expansion, is com­ pletely at variance with the usual social insurance pattern.1 It is accounted for chiefly by the so-called "voluntary hos­ pital" tradition, which, though badly shaken and radically altered by post-war developments, still has a strong sen­ timental place in English life. The British "voluntary" hospitals started as private insti­ tutions existing merely to serve the needs of the sick. In pre­ war days, most of these hospitals made no charge whatever for the care of patients. They were, moreover, open to any sick person who chose to go to them, although the well-to-do usually entered "nursing homes," i.e. small private institu­ tions operated by surgeons on a profit basis.2 The voluntary hospitals3 were supported by public con­ tributions, coming not only in great sums from the very rich but also in pennies from the poor. Many a knighthood was granted on the basis of substantial public service through 1 Great Britain is the only one of twenty-two countries having compulsory systems in 1936 that provided no hospital care. 2 The British do not term such an institution a hospital. 3 There was no real "system" of voluntary hospitals. The institutions developed in­ dependently of each other with great variety in details. The description here given is that of the usual pattern. Information was gathered in 1932 by the Central Bureau of Hospital Information from approximately three-fourths (74 per cent) of the voluntary hospitals (containing 73 per cent of all the beds in these areas) located outside the large cities. Even at this date less than 5 per cent of the beds were "pay" beds and more than two-thirds of these were in hospitals having under one hundred beds. About one-sixth of the hospitals had had a few paying beds since the inception of the hospital. One-third of the hospitals still had no "paying" beds at all.

His Role in Great Britain

B9

endowment of a new hospital wing; special collection days, fairs, bazaars, and many other devices were resorted to for reaching members of all economic groups. It was a treasured tradition that the public, rich and poor alike, each according to his purse, should voluntarily support the hospital, and that the hospital should serve all sick without question of payment. The staff was a "closed" staff, i.e. only its members could attend medical and surgical patients, and as a rule it comprised distinguished physicians and surgeons who gave their services gratuitously or for a nominal honorarium. Such in general was still the situation when the health in­ surance law was enacted in 1911. Hospital care was not then on the health insurance dossier. Such care was the business of the great private charitable institutions—the voluntary hospitals. After the World War, partly because of an aggravation of economic and social changes which had their beginning much earlier and partly because of the long depression which settled down upon Britain, the voluntary hospitals fell into serious financial difficulties. There was first of all great in­ crease in the demands made upon hospitals. This was caused partly by more common demand for the specialist services which could be found in the hospitals and partly by the fact, to use the words of a distinguished British physician, Sir Henry Brackenbury,4 that "domestic difficulties of manag­ ing a long and serious illness at home increased" and "con­ sequently many persons who formerly would never have thought of entering hospitals began to do so. Adequate public contributions and endowments to meet this situation simply were not forthcoming. Despite tremendous effort on the part of the hospitals to keep going on the old basis some change became inevitable." To quote from the report in 1921 of Lord Cave's Commit­ tee on the Voluntary Hospitals: "The practice of asking 4 Sir Henry Brackenbury, PatientandDoctor, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1935, p. 204.

go

The Health Insurance Doctor

patients treated at the hospital to contribute to the hospital fund is comparatively new and is a product of the financial stringency. . . . "Some hospitals make a fixed charge (except in the case of poor people) as a condition of admission, the charge for a patient being generally about 20s. a week. . . . Other hos­ pitals adopt a practice which they consider to be more in accordance with the voluntary principle and after the ad­ mission of an in-patient make inquiries as to his means and apply to him (generally through a lady almoner) to make a voluntary contribution to the hospital funds according to his ability. In either case the amount asked for is far below the actual costs incurred."6 A Central Bureau of Hospital Information was organized in the early 'twenties for mutual advice and counsel. An "almoner" system was installed by a growing number of institutions to obtain part of their maintenance directly from such of the patients as could afford to pay for care. This system, like all other methods of collecting from patients, of course, struck at the very heart of the voluntary hospital tradition and was instituted only as a last resort alternative to ceasing to function at all.6 The almoner system, moreover, never was deemed really acceptable. The compulsory insurance services had educated the British public to the advantage of the insurance tech­ nique which collects in advance while people are well and 6 Re-port of Voluntary Hospitals Committee ("Lord Cave's Committee"), 1921, cmd. 1335, pp. 26, 27. The "almoner" is the equivalent of the American "medical social worker," attached to certain of our public and our private institutions. Her "eligibility" duties require her to investigate the financial circumstances of the prospective patients and advise the hospital management what should be charged for care in specific cases. 6 The difficulties of handling illness cases in the home—difficulties brought by post­ war "domestic help" problems—not only increased the demand on the voluntary hospitals but also stimulated the development of a type of institution new to British experience, commonly spoken of as the "cottage hospital." This is like the ordinary American commercial hospital in that it allows a doctor to follow his patient into the hospital. It is intended as an accommodation for the general practitioner whose patient cannot be cared for at home conveniently. Like other English hospitals, it is not a com­ mercial institution. Charges are, at maximum, to cover costs only.

His Role in Great Britain

91

employs the funds for their care and maintenance when they are ill and unable to work. This was made very clear by Lord Cave's committee report cited above. It outlined at great length several contributory schemes which had just been started, whereby "members" for a small weekly sum were entitled to hospital care without subjection to the almoner (i.e. without further contribution according to their means). And the report concluded: "We have dwelt at length on these schemes of mass contribution, because we are inclined to be­ lieve that in the adoption of one or other of them may be found the key to the problem which the voluntary hospitals have to solve."7 A proposal to expand the health insurance contributions, however, and to add hospital benefits, obviously needed to round out medical benefit, was conspicuously lacking. In­ stead, the report stated that "such a proposal would effect a radical change in the position of the voluntary hospitals and require careful consideration." In like fashion, the later report of the Royal Commission on National Health Insurance failed to recommend making institutional care a statutory benefit, chiefly on the ground that this would be prejudicial to the voluntary hospital tradition.8 Ergo came the Hospital Savings movement. Membership in such associations was usually open only to persons in cir­ cumstances comparable to those of the wage earners included in the compulsory health insurance scheme. A small sum, as a rule 3d. (6 cents) a week, gives a membership which en­ titles the family as well as the insured person to benefits. The voluntary hospitals agree to waive "almoner" investigation in cases of members of Hospital Savings Associations, ac­ cepting instead from the association a weekly sum of 28s. 7

Report of Voluntary Hospitals' Committee, p. 26. Report of Royal Commission on National Health Insurance, 1926, cmd. 2596, p. 125, and also see evidence of Ministry of Health's representative arguing these same premises. Minutes of Evidence, pp. 105-42. 8

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The Health Insurance Doctor

($7)9 for each member hospitalized, supplemented by an annual lump-sum grant. According to the information filed with the Hospital Association, the flat-rate payment, small as it is, exceeds the average extracted under the "almoner" system from persons of like economic circumstances. The care guaranteed by the insurance arrangement is limited to ten weeks in a minority of the voluntary hospitals, but is given for an unlimited period as needed in most of them. The Hospital Savings Association of London estimated that the membership in hospital associations in 1936 was about 1,750,000 (dependents bring the benefited group to about 4,000,000), the majority being resident in London and its environs. With the break in the voluntary hospitals' tradition of gratuitous service and the great increase in the demands on the hospitals has come, quite justifiably, rebellion by many of the staff specialists against the giving of their services without remuneration. The British Medical Association has taken the stand that hospitals that receive funds through contributory schemes should turn over a percentage of the funds to the medical staff. Although the majority of the staffs probably still oppose any break with the long-established custom, it is significant that the younger men tend to ap­ prove the stand of the British Medical Association.10 The tradition of "honorary" service, while dying hard, un­ doubtedly is dying with the changes in the system that bred it. Payment of staff physicians is becoming even more im­ mediately inevitable by virtue of current developments in the public hospital field. This recent public hospital develop­ ment is far more significant in most respects than the changes in the voluntary hospital set-up. As a result of the 1929 amendment of the County Government Act, certain county 9 The

usual supplementary lump-sum "grant" brings it up to 32s. ( $ 8 ) per week. Memorandum 16 issued by the Central Bureau of Hospital Information in 1929 (reprinted in 1933). 10 See

His Role in Great Britain

93

authorities have been converting their old "poor law" free hospitals for indigent persons into public "pay" hospitals for the general public. The London County Council has been remodelling, building, equipping, and organizing a splendid health service, which offers to the general public both hos­ pital care and also, through out-patient departments of the iospitals, a great variety of specialist services to persons who are not institutionalized patients. Staffs are paid staffs. Members are partly full-time men but, in deference to pres­ sure from the British Medical Association,11 are predom­ inantly part-time consultants. Maximum charges to patients are cost charges only (£4 a week, $20, is the full charge), and the weekly charge includes everything—maintenance, nurs­ ing, laboratory service, as well as medical and surgical care. "Almoner" service determines the charges for patients who feel unable to meet the normal "full costs." Arrangements with the Hospital Savings Associations similar to those made by the voluntary hospitals (but not so generous)12 admit members of these associations without cost. The health service of the London County Council obviously is driving toward the adequate medical servicing of society with an entirely different technique from that of the National Health Insurance scheme. The conspicuous gaps in that scheme caused by the omission of institutional and specialist care in the medical benefit undoubtedly played a part in creating the public pressure leading to this public health service development. So far, the specialist services offered in the out-patient de­ partments of most of the London County Council hospitals have been restricted largely to previous or contemplated 11 The organized medical profession waged a bitter battle to secure for all medical men the privilege of following patients into the newly created public hospitals. This privilege was refused on the score that the responsibility of the London County Council in offering institutional care to the paying public necessitated careful selection of staff. 12 Only insured persons, not their families as in the case of voluntary hospitals, are granted gratuitous care in the public hospitals on the basis of membership. This dis­ crimination was devised purposely to promote use of the voluntary hospitals—to foster which the Hospital Savings Associations were started.

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The Health Insurance Doctor

patients of the institutions. The council, however, has obli­ gated itself in its adopted rules to the provision of no such limited service. It is the opinion of more than one informed medical man familiar with current developments that both specialist services and institutional care administered by county councils inevitably will become insurance benefits. Accord­ ing to such opinion, the new benefits will be provided through public hospitals (and probably approved voluntary hospitals as well), through out-patient clinics, and through a dom­ iciliary specialist service, the institution of which will become compulsory obligations of the county councils. The insured worker and his dependents will then receive these services as he now obtains general practitioner attendance as part of his insurance medical benefit, instead of being admitted as a Hospital Savings Association member without charge or paying according to the discretion of the almoner.

SOME ALTERNATIVES TO THE HEALTH INSURANCE SERVICE SPONSORED BY MINORITY MEDICAL OPINION

O

BVIOUSLY not all medical opinion endorses the exact health insurance views of the organized medical profession speaking through the British Medical Association. The most coherent minority medical group is embraced in the Medical Practitioners Union, an affiliate of the British Federation of Labor, i.e. the Trade Union Con­ gress. Some of its membership is also found in the British Medical Association, but for the most part it comprises British Medical Association dissenters. In its general approval of the health insurance system as a method of organizing the practice of medicine, it is at one with the larger organization. It differs with the latter only in desiring to develop from this organization of medical service a system for all persons of moderate incomes. The Medical Practitioners Union advocates the imme­ diate provision of general practitioner service, paid for out of the general tax receipts, for all families below a liberal in­ come level. As in the health insurance scheme, all doctors could offer their services, free choice of practitioner by the patient would be allowed, and the government would pay the doctors on a capitation basis for the families on their medical lists. Specialist services similarly organized are advocated for addition after five years' operation of the gen­ eral practitioner service. The Union officials point out that this arrangement would immediately extend the advantages of the health insurance medical service to shopkeepers, farmers, and similar groups

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whose needs are just as pressing as those of the technical wage earners who are the only group that with administrative ease can be included in a contributory insurance system. "State" doctors, it is emphasized, would perform all the duties now assigned to the panel doctors. No substantial change, there­ fore, would be called for in the organization now operative for the supervision of medical benefit. Health insurance as such would continue to provide the wage earners during in­ capacity with cash benefits which would be certified as usual by the attending physician. This proposal is violently opposed by certain other minority medical opinion, which is pressing for a complete state or socialized medical service along lines often discussed by advocates of "state medicine" in the United States. It would be inaccurate to speak of the medical men who are of this opinion as a group comparable to the Practitioners' Union, for example; they are not comparably organized and there are many individual differences on various points in­ volved. The chief basis of their opposition to the Medical Union's plans and those of the British Medical Association lies in the very principles upon which the British Medical Association and the Medical Union agree, i.e. the right of all doctors to participate, completely free choice of doctors, and capitation. This "state medicine" group deems the only desirable medical service to be one with selected, salaried staffs serving all the public as does the free school system. A few of them think that the whole "choice of doctor" theory is much ado about nothing. Choice by the patient within the selected staffs is conceded by most of them. This point of view, critical of open panel and free choice, is well expressed in the following excerpts from two papers written by Dr. Sommerville Hastings, one of its exponents, who is both an eminent surgeon and teacher and an impor­ tant voice in the London County Council Medical Service:1 1 The Evolution of a State Medical Service, by Sommerville Hastings, M.S., F.R.C.S., surgeon and lecturer, Ear and Throat Department, Middlesex Hospital; chairman,

His Role in Great Britain

97

"It [extension of insurance services] would result in any practitioner within certain wide limits, whatever his record or qualifications, who could curry favor with a section of the populace being guaranteed a living at the expense of the state. After all, it is very difficult for the public to estimate correctly the relative value of the services rendered to them and impossible in most cases for them to distinguish between the efficient and the inefficient doctor. Moreover, by main­ taining the complete separation between the doctors who prevent and those who treat disease, it would accentuate one of the greatest evils of our present regime." Again: "You will tell me that English people do not like being regimented, that they will not put up with the doctor provided for them by the State, but will want to choose their own. I quite agree. But there is no reason why a patient should not choose his own doctor in a State medical service, although obviously a wider selection will be possible in town than in the country, just as it is today. Unless a doctor allows himself to be overworked and therefore inefficient, he cannot deal with more than a certain number of patients, and this applies equally to the doctor in private practice and in the national service. By allocating the required number of doctors to a given area, it would be easy to permit any in­ dividual to select his own doctor, just as is now carried out under the panel system. Doubtless the very popular doctor would have his full quota of patients and even a waiting list, but, on the other hand, there would be many people who would not trouble to make a selection, and these could be allocated to the less popular or more recently appointed doctors."2 None of the proponents of salaried, selected general prac­ titioner service have in mind, of course, any sudden interHospitals and Medical Services Committee, London County Council. Reprinted from The Medical Officer, March 16, 1935, London: Sir Joseph Causton & Sons, Ltd., pp. 5,6. 2 Reprinted from St. Bartholomew's Hospital Journal, June 1936, London: Allard & Son, pp. 5, 6 .

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ruption of health insurance service. A gradual evolution is proposed so designed that while protecting the doctors who already have interests involved in panel practice, it will shut off future entrance to the panels. Salaried medical men, then, at first will supplement, and in the course of time gradually will take over the general practitioner care of the sick, in­ sured as well as the uninsured. Meanwhile, they propose to develop specialist services, both institutional and non-institutional, in connection with public (County Council) hospitals which they believe should be made obligatory at once. The likelihood that this last pro­ posal may become a fact is agreed to by many who are not advocates of state medicine. In so concluding, they point to the long failure of the government to add specialists' ser­ vices to medical benefit; to the great advantage, if not the necessity, of the laboratory and other facilities which con­ nection with the hospitals gives a consultant service; and to the effect of the current London County Council develop­ ments. Nothing which could be termed in any sense "medical opinion" in Britain today contemplates as either possible or desirable for any but the well-to-do an unorganized medical service arranged for by individual contract between patient and doctor.

P A R T II: D E N M A R K

SUMMARY OF THE DANISH HEALTH INSURANCE SCHEME

T

HE Danish health insurance scheme dates back forty-six years to an act passed in 1892. This measure brought into existence a voluntary subsidized in­ surance scheme based upon the principle of inducing rather than compelling self-help. Mutual aid societies1 were offered several types of government subsidy toward the cost of their health insurance benefits, on condition that they registered for government supervision, met certain requirements in their membership policy, and offered benefits of prescribed minimum standards. These subsidies were to be available on behalf of only the "unpropertied" members, defined as either industrial wage earners or other persons, such as clerks, farmers, etc., with incomes and accumulations below stipulated amounts. The government supervision was directed at (1) compli­ ance with the benefit requirements; (2) ensuring financial soundness; and (3) guaranteeing membership to anyone in passable health who desired it. In other respects the societies were allowed to manage their own affairs as they chose with­ out interference from the government. Persons suffering from incurable or chronic diseases were to be admitted only if the rules of a society permitted it, and many did. Such members were not to be entitled to benefit during periods of the special handicapping disease but were to be insured against all other types of illness. 1 i.e. fraternal organizations like the English Friendly Societies of which there had been a considerable development following the dissolution of the compulsory gilds in

1862.

ίο2

The Health Insurance Doctor

In promoting health insurance the Danish act, like the scheme in England, was directed at the protection of persons who were dependent upon the income they could earn by their personal labor. However, unlike the compulsory British system, which for administrative reasons was restricted to wage earners, the Danish act provided that small farmers, shopkeepers and other self-employed workers were equally eligible with the white-collar wage earner. With the voluntary subsidized principle, there was, of course, no reason why they should not be.2 The necessary minimum benefits were to be granted for thirteen weeks in the year and included medical care and hospital treatment for the member and his children under fifteen years of age and a cash benefit. Other benefits, such as free medicine, massage, medicinal baths, home nursing, etc., were permitted but not required. Societies were permitted to deprive a member of cash benefit in case of illness resulting from intoxication or a brawl "originating with the member." Members paid varying pre­ miums or dues according to the amount of cash benefit desired. The wife of an insured person was expected to be insured in her own right and did not derive any direct benefit from her husband's insurance. Medical, hospital, and cash benefits to needy society members for a period equal to the insurance period, i.e. an­ other thirteen weeks, as well as payment of dues during unemployment periods, were guaranteed at the expense of the commune without the usual penalizing effect of loss of civil rights which was imposed upon "poor relief" recipients.3 In contrast to the British and other compulsory health insurance schemes, the employer as such paid no part of the cost in this voluntary subsidized set-up. It was not uncom2 See

pp. 3 and 4 supra for explanation of coverage restrictions of compulsory schemes. Receipt of poor relief ordinarily meant loss of certain civil rights, e.g. loss of the right to vote and hold office, loss of old-age pension rights, loss of right to marry without communal consent, etc. 3

His Role in Denmark

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mon, however, for employers and other persons of means as become honorary members of a Registered Society, and to such to make an annual contribution to the society's treasury. It is significant that medical and hospital care for the mem­ ber's children, as well as for the member, were required. Since no regular share of the premiums was met by the em­ ployers, this would have meant prohibitively high premiums even with the government subsidies, had it not been for the nature of Denmark's hospital system. The hospitals of Den­ mark were largely governmental and derived their main sup­ port from taxes rather than from patients. In other words, to quote from an official description of Denmark's hospital situation, the public hospital system was, even aside from the insurance scheme, "a kind of insurance for the whole population."4 It is as traditional in Denmark that hospitali­ zation should be financed mainly by public funds as it is in the United States that public schools should be entirely sup­ ported by public taxes and available to rich and poor alike. Hospital care, moreover, as in Britain, includes attention from the medical and surgical staff as well as maintenance and nursing. In twenty years' time, i.e. by 1913, when the British sys­ tem was just getting into full swing, almost two-fifths of Denmark's population were receiving both medical and hospital care through her health insurance scheme. By this date also, the Copenhagen societies were provid­ ing specialists' services as well as family doctor attendance. Most of the urban organizations and some of the rural ones were paying all or part of the cost of drugs and surgical ap­ pliances. Important changes occurred in 1921. One amend­ ment required societies to admit physically handicapped persons to full membership and unconditional benefit if such persons were able to make any contribution toward self-sup­ port. Special subsidies reimbursed the societies for three4 See The Oanish National Insurance Act, by Sigurd Wechselmann, published under the auspices of the Ministry for Social Affairs, Copenhagen, 1936, p. 27.

The Health Insurance Doctor

fourths of the additional expenses entailed by the illness of such members. (The commune was obligated to reimburse the national exchequer in the amount of one-half of these special subsidies.) Another amendment required maternity benefits, which included both cash allowances for ten days after childbirth and medical care, when necessary, during confinement. Compulsory invalidity insurance for all "unpropertied" members insured for health insurance was legislated in this same year, i.e. 1921. Employers were required to contribute to the cost of this insurance by payments which were col­ lected with their workmen's compensation premiums for industrial accident insurance. To date, however, Denmark has remained unwilling to abandon completely her "inducing self-help" principle in the social security field, as was demonstrated in the two omnibus statutes passed in 1933, the Social Security Measure and the Public Assistance Law. These enactments worked a revision of Denmark's social welfare set-up. Compulsory invalidity insurance was made universal.5 Health insurance became a complicated hybrid of the compulsory and voluntary prin­ ciples of social insurance with an admixture of a "preferred" type of relief. The old-age pension system is still non-contributory. No old-age pension, however, can ever be obtained by a person who evades his legal obligations with respect to health in­ surance. Voluntary health insurance societies are still to be Reg­ istered Societies and still to receive subsidies on account of their "unpropertied" active members. In addition, nonsubsidized Health Insurance Associations "Continuation Funds" for the better-to-do, although not subsidized, are to be "state inspected," i.e. subject to state supervision and control. 5 The government pays about one-fifth of the costs of this insurance, and no pension is given to the "undeserving" person who persistently leads a flagrantly immoral life.

His Role in Denmark

105

It is now, however, incumbent upon every person between the ages of twenty-one and sixty, unless already insured against sickness, to seek either active ("participating") or passive ("contributing") membership in a Registered Society or in a Health Insurance Association. If able to make any contribution toward self-support and not actually ill when application is made, membership cannot be refused. "Prop­ ertied" persons who desire active "participating" member­ ship must join either a state inspected Health Insurance Association or a special section of a Registered Society.6 Passive "contributing" membership may be taken with either type of organization by the well-to-do person, and with a Registered Society by the man or woman without means (i.e. "unpropertied"). A passive "contributing" member pays a small annual7 sum as a premium and no benefits are payable to him. He has, however, two valuable rights: (1) at any time in his life up to the age of sixty years, should he become an "unpropertied" person, his status may be changed to that of active participat­ ing membership with full benefit rights; and (2) at any time before the age of forty years, even though he remains "prop­ ertied" and so not eligible to participating membership in a Registered Society, he may demand active membership in a Health Insurance Association. There are eighteen Health Insurance Associations cover­ ing all parts of Denmark. Persons who, at any time up to the age of sixty years, pass out of participating membership in the Registered Society because of improved income may be­ come participating members of a Health Insurance Associa6 A Registered Health Insurance Society already having a separate section for "prop­ ertied" members may, if it has not less than 15 members, continue this section on the same basis as the Health Insurance Associations, i.e. without public subsidy. 7 Two kroner (54 cents) until twenty-five years of age; 2.50 kroner (67¾ cents) thereafter. This must be collected from what Danish official reports term the "re­ luctant" contributor either with the collection of local taxes, which almost every Dane is required to pay, or by separate process in the case of the non-taxpayers. Krone figured at 27 cents.

l o6

The Health Insurance Doctor

tion.8 These associations do not directly provide medical care, but partially reimburse their members for their medical expenses. In brief, the plan set up by the 1933 legislation is that every Danish citizen of appropriate years shall become at least potentially insured against sickness and shall pay a specific annual sum for this privilege. The government fixes each year, by reference to statistical data on wages and the cost of living, the income limit and the property limit set up for determination of "unpropertied," as distinguished from "propertied" persons. The objective is that the limits of income fixed for the "unpropertied" group shall correspond with the annual earnings of the skilled worker working full time and that accumulation of a reason­ able amount of property shall be encouraged. The general rules for such determination may be revised every third year. In 1936 the income limit was set at 4,200 kroner ($1,134) in Copenhagen, 3,600 kroner ($972) in the towns, and 2,800 kroner ($756) in the strictly rural areas. A maximum figure for property owned was set for the entire kingdom of 14,000 kroner ($3,780) in the case of breadwinners and 9,500 kroner $2,565)9 for other persons. The main outlines of the present health insurance provi­ sions for "unpropertied" persons are as follows: The qualify­ ing period for benefits is the very short one of six weeks, and even that period is dispensed with in event of accidental injury and also in the case of persons under fifteen years of age who are insured in their own right. Maternity benefit is due only after ten months' insurance. Medical benefit10 remains practically as set up in the original act. 8 This privilege of transfer, which is permitted those who have been actively insured, is justifiably more extensive than that allowed the merely passive or contributing mem­ bers, who, as has been stated, must transfer to the Health Insurance Association before the age of forty. 9 Krone at 27 cents as stated in n. 7 supra, 10 The Workmen's Compensation Act entitles the worker who suffers an industrial

His Role in Denmark

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Cash benefit must not be paid for the first three days of illness, and societies are permitted to set a seven-day waiting period. No cash benefit is payable in case of a compensated industrial injury, although regular medical benefit is granted. Further, no cash benefit is ever payable unless income dur­ ing illness is either cut off or reduced. Lastly, cash benefit, when added to such income (except when an invalidity or old-age pension is the sole source of support), must never be sufficient to total more than the amount of customary in­ come. Daily cash benefits ordinarily must not be less than forty ore (the price of two quarts of milk in Copenhagen), nor more than six kroner (30 per cent more than the farm laborer's wage). In no event must they exceed 80 per cent of the in­ sured person's customary earnings. Women and minors under eighteen may be permitted to insure for a lower amount or to dispense with cash benefit altogether. The society's rules may provide that cash benefit be reduced or suspended during hospitalization, and benefit still may be denied altogether in case of disability resulting from intoxica­ tion or a "brawl" precipitated by the claimant. Cash benefits11 must be provided for twenty-six weeks in the year up to a maximum of sixty weeks in a three-year period. The rules permit two thirteen-week benefit periods separated by an interval of thirteen weeks, and this is the usual arrangement. During the thirteen-week intervals, up to a similar maximum of sixty weeks of benefit in three years, the commune is obligated to provide identical "continua­ tion" benefits to all needy insured persons. This is not deemed ordinary poor relief, but a quasi-insurance right. The mem­ ber who draws sixty weeks' benefit (which is his maximum) injury to additional special medical services which are not furnished by his Health Insurance Society, and to artificial limbs, glasses, orthopedicappliances, etc., as well as to cash compensation. 11 The time limits for medical benefit are the same as for cash benefit when the doctors are paid on a fee basis. See pp. 140/.

lo8

The Health Insurance Doctor

in three successive years, has his active status suspended for at least a year. Reinstatement as an active or participating member after suspension rests upon the same physical qualifications as original admission, i.e. being able to make some contribution toward self-support. If unable to make such a contribution and therefore inadmissible to sickness insurance, the ap­ plicant is undoubtedly eligible for an invalidity pension which is payable on loss of two-thirds of his earning capacity. This carries with it the right to necessary medical and hos­ pital attention at the expense of the commune,12 as is equally the case with an old-age pensioner who loses his sickness in­ surance membership. The maternity benefits provide a cash allowance equal to the regular sickness benefit allowance and payable for a fourteen-day period after confinement. (Free midwife assis­ tance and medical attendance are also guaranteed.) Women who are required by the Factory Act to abstain from work for four weeks after childbirth receive a further cash al­ lowance equal to about half the minimum factory wage. The allowance is continued for another two weeks, moreover, if the mother remains away from her work for this additional period in order to nurse her child. The same cash allowance must be paid for eight weeks be­ fore confinement to women in those listed industries in which work is deemed especially detrimental at such a stage of pregnancy. Insured persons who move from one area to another are transferred to the society in the new area with all accrued membership rights. This arrangement has been effective for some years and was worked out by voluntary coopera­ tion of the central council of Registered Societies and the Directorate of Health Insurance Societies, the government's supervisory office. Societies are grouped into District Fed­ erations for the purpose of making arrangements for medical 12

Whether a "means test" may be exacted is in dispute, see Chap, xvi, n. 2.

His Role in Denmark

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care and their arrangements must be approved by the Min­ ister of Social Affairs. District federations are in turn mem­ bers of a Central Union covering the entire country. This Central Union has cooperative agreements with correspond­ ing Unions in Norway and Sweden which provide inter alia for transfer of insured persons from societies of one of the Scandinavian countries to societies functioning in one of the two others. The direct governmental subsidies amount to more than 40 per cent of the members' dues. No subsidy is granted in respect of administrative costs or of expenditures on drugs. The hospitalization costs met by the commune over and above what is paid by the societies for treatment of their members more than double the government's actual contri­ bution. The communes may not charge societies for hos­ pitalization of their members more than 50 per cent of their usual rates. Since the latter constitute at most only one-fifth, and often a smaller fraction, of the actual hospital costs, at least 90 per cent of the institutionalized insurance cases are financed directly by public taxes. In 1936, there were 1,609 societies registered for health insurance; 650 of these had a membership of less than 500. The largest organization (in Copenhagen) had about 240,000 members. The average active membership was 1,309; includ­ ing "contributing" membership it was 1,433. Altogether, 2,100,000 "unpropertied" persons over fifteen years of age were insured. This constituted 77 per cent of that age group. With their 800,000 children, who also were entitled to medical and hospital care, they constituted ap­ proximately 88 per cent of the Danish population, in con­ trast to the 40 per cent of the population receiving insurance medical benefit in England. The average weekly contribution paid by the insured member was 0.41 of a krone, about 11 cents.

IlO

The Health Insurance Doctor

The Health Insurance Associations for the better-to-do had 112,000 members and the State Railway Health Insur­ ance Association some 38,000 more. While the average cash benefit is considerably higher in the Danish metropolitan area than the English benefit,13 this benefit is, like the English standard benefit, often far too low for family maintenance. The Directorate of Health Insurance Societies believes adequate cash allowances to be of great importance from a health as well as an economic standpoint and constantly urges the societies to more intensive cam­ paigns for larger money benefits, especially in the rural areas. This, of course, means inducing the insured to pay larger con­ tributions, as dues vary with the amount of cash benefit desired. The most significant feature of the Danish system has always been its emphasis upon medical and hospital care. A continually increasing percentage of total expenditures has been devoted to such benefits in comparison with the cash benefits paid. Arrears because of unemployment or other calamity need not interrupt the insured person's protection, as the com­ mune is obligated to keep up dues when the insured, because of such circumstances, cannot afford to pay them.14 This situation, like the similar one in Britain,15 not only protects the working family but also brings to the Danish physician the security of continued income in bad times as in good. 18 i.e. for adult males. Eighteen kroner ($4.86) per week in comparison with the English standard of fifteen shillings ($3.75). 14 Dues are paid to insure medical and other service benefits and cash benefit at a rate of not more than two kroner per day. 16 See pp. 8 and 9 supra.

HEALTH INSURANCE MEDICAL BENEFIT

T

HE medical benefit required by Denmark's health insurance system is available immediately on taking out insurance and provides a "family doctor" or gen­ eral practitioner service as does the British scheme. In con­ trast to British medical benefit, which is available only to the wage earner, both the insured person and his (or her) children under fifteen years of age are entitled to such service in Denmark. "Children" includes stepchildren, adopted children, and foster children who are placed "in the home to be reared." In addition, and again in contrast to the British scheme, medical benefit provides hospital care (including treatment in institutions for mental cases) as well as sana­ torium treatment in case of tuberculosis. Instead, however, of the generous provision of all "necessary drugs and med­ icaments" which is provided in England, payment of threefourths of the cost of insulin for treatment of diabetes, liver and similar compounds for pernicious anemia, and eucortone (a hormone for Addison's Disease), is all that must be done for the insured person's drug needs. Except in the metropol­ itan area (i.e. Copenhagen and its environs) free transporta­ tion to and from the office of the physician and the hospital must also be furnished as an insurance right, but by the commune not by the sick fund. Although it is unlawful, as in England, for the doctor to require payment from the insured patient, many societies through the "control ticket" system, collect small amounts from members who seek medical attention. The organiza­ tions that pay their doctor chiefly on a capitation basis— organizations which include in their membership about

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The Health Insurance Doctor

three-fifths of the total number insured—quite commonly require the insured person to use a "control ticket" or to get the doctor's endorsement of a control card when obtaining specially paid-for medical service. Such service usually in­ cludes calls made by the doctor during the night or on Sun­ day or a legal holiday. The usual fee collected by the town and rural society for each control ticket or endorsement of the control card is fifty ore (13^ cents) or one krone (27 cents), while two kroner (57 cents) to four kroner ($1.08) is collected in the metropolitan area, i.e. Copenhagen. Many of the rural organizations which pay their doctors on a fee basis require a control ticket (or an endorsement of a control card) before consulting the doctor at any time. As a rule a smaller sum is charged for this control service when the patient goes to the doctor's office instead of asking the doctor to make a call at the patient's home. Frequently the control fee for a follow-up call made at the doctor's initiative is less than that required when the patient sends for the doctor. The charge is generally doubled when medical service is demanded at night or on Sundays and holidays. About one:-tenth (120) of the rural societies which use the control system place a maximum on the number of control tickets or endorsements which may be demanded in any one illness. In 1935 the total amount collected in "control" fees by all thesocieties in Denmarkwas 776,000 kroner (!222,800), which amounted to between 3 and 4per cent of the amount paid for remuneration of the health insurance doctors.1 As in England's health insurance scheme, childbirth is not regarded as illness, and the general medical service provided does not of itself include obstetrical care. Necessary medical attendance at confinement and delivery is included in the insurance, however, as a separate maternity benefit. Such attendance is deemed "necessary" if in the opinion of the 1 Information furnished by Direktor Borberg of the Danish Health Insurance In­ spectorate.

His Role in Denmark

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insured woman's midwife or doctor such medical aid is re­ quired. Midwife and nursing assistance for the mother and child and the necessary dressing, supplies, etc.,2 must also be provided by the health insurance society. In 1934 maternity benefits were given by the health in­ surance societies in connection with almost three-fourths of the births in Denmark that year.3 Medical assistance was furnished in a little under 30 per cent of the insurance con­ finement cases. The optional part of medical benefit plays a most impor­ tant role in the Danish scheme. All the societies in Copen­ hagen and almost two-thirds of those outside the metropol­ itan area, pa j part of the cost of all medicines prescribed by the attending physician. As the law requires the insured to pay at least one-fourth of any drugs provided under the insurance scheme, there is no completely free drug service. The Copenhagen societies, those in the smaller cities, and a few of the rural funds pay the maximum permitted amount, i.e. three-fourths of the cost. Most other organizations meet one-half of the drug costs of the insured and a very small group meets less than half.4 All urban societies and most of the rural ones provide a dental benefit, consisting of a contribution toward the cost of specified dental care. In the Copenhagen district the specified care is defined as "all necessary treatment of the teeth and oral cavity," except gold fillings and artificial den­ tures. Treatment of diseased gums, as well as all work neces­ sary to the preservation of the teeth, is included. A third of the organizations outside of the Copenhagen area offer similarly broad dental benefit and twice as many (more than a thousand) other funds, pay for extraction of teeth. The latter service, however, is frequently performed 2 The

Public Health Service stipulates the standard amounts that must be furnished· 73 per cent of all births. Wechselmann, op. cit., p. 47. 4The Copenhagen societies (43); the other urban societies (75); and eight rural organizations pay three-fourths; 800 organizations pay one-half, and 59 pay less than one-half of the cost of the medicines. 3

The Health Insurance Doctor

ii4

by the attending doctor, and if special dental benefit is not provided, extraction of teeth and treatment of gums is a medical obligation. Except when extraction only is provided, the insured person in all cases is required to pay a charge directly to the dentist. This ranges from 2,0 per cent to 50 per cent of the total cost of the dental care. The charges for insurance dental care are regulated by contracts between the individual den­ tists and the societies, which embody the terms of an agree­ ment drawn up by the Dental Association and the Fed­ erated Societies.5 All societies in the metropolitan area of Copenhagen pro­ vide specialists' services covering all the important broad fields of specialization. These fields include: i. Ear, nose, and throat. 1. Eye. 3. Lungs, kidney, and heart. 4. Pediatrics. 5. Dermatology and syphilology. 6. Orthopedics. 7. Neurology and psychiatry. 8. Gynecology. 9. Obstetrics. 10. Roentgenology (X-Ray). 11. Gastro-enterology. 12. Specialized surgery (brain, abdomen, rectal, etc.). 13. "Massage,"6 including corrective gymnastics, diathermy, hydrotherapy, violet ray, etc. Treatment by orthopedists, dermatologists, and also by "massage" specialists is granted by the organizations in some of the towns and rural areas. But, except as given through the out-patient clinics of the hospitals, regular specialist 6 This eFor

contract follows the general form of the Medical Contracts. explanation of this term, see p. 121 infra.

His Role in Denmark

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services outside of the Copenhagen area, are confined usually to eye, ear, nose, and throat work. Eight hundred societies have agreements covering the latter services. No official record, however, is kept of the extent to which these services are made actually available to the insured. It is believed by the government supervisory officials7 that at least the seventy-five societies in the towns, as contrasted with the funds in the purely rural areas, give their insured members all needed care in these special fields. Denmark is divided into twenty-four medical districts, in more than half of which there is now at least one "central" hospital which has modern technical equipment and a fairly standardized specialist staff in both surgery and internal medicine. The rural and town health insurance societies arrange in the more serious cases both hospitalization and free transportation to and from these "central" institutions (instead of the nearest communal hospitals) and in many cases also pay for treatment in their out-patient depart­ ments.8 Practically all of the societies in districts that are still without a central hospital pay part of the specialist fees in certain urgent cases. Two-fifths of the organizations (650) add home nursing to the medical benefit which their members are entitled to re­ ceive, and in Copenhagen and a few of the towns the Fed­ erated Societies have established convalescent homes. As in Britain, the health insurance doctor is primarily responsible for deciding what drugs to prescribe for his in­ sured patient and is similarly obliged to observe rules of economy when several preparations are equally efficacious. As has been remarked, the patient must pay at least onefourth of the cost of the drugs, a rule that is itself directed against extravagant use of medicaments. 7 Information furnished author by Direktor Borberg of the Danish Health Insurance Inspectorate, August 1936. 8 The cost of transportation to the central hospital, when provided, is divided among the society, the commune, and the county. See Leg. Ser. 1933, Den. 4, No. 17 (4).

116

The Health Insurance Doctor

If the insured person persistently refuses to follow the in­ structions of his physician or refuses to accept hospitaliza­ tion when his doctor deems it necessary, he forfeits all right to medical benefit in Copenhagen and the right to anything but treatment at the doctor's office in most of the nonmetropolitan area.9 The doctor must, of course, notify the society when such a situation develops. As is the case in England, more is expected of the family doctor practising in the country than of the urban general practitioner.10 This principle is recognized in the district col­ lective contracts by which the terms of service of the Danish health insurance doctor are determined. Disputes about the limits of the doctors' obligations are, as in Britain, settled by a procedure in which the organized medical profession plays an important part. Cases are re­ ferred first to the District Medical Association and the Dis­ trict Federation of Societies. If these two organizations can­ not negotiate an agreed decision, the question then goes to an arbitration council or board11 composed of an equal number of representatives from each body. Their decision is final. Again, as in England, the doctors' obligations include the giving of certificates of capacity and incapacity to guide the health insurance society in administering the cash benefit to which the insured worker is entitled during incapacitating illness. Medical benefit may be suspended normally when a mem­ ber is in arrears for a period stipulated in the society's by­ laws (as a rule two or three months). Extensions are usually granted on request. In addition, since the commune is ob9 cf.

the British rule and see p. ii supra. when the society gives a special dental benefit as one of its optional benefits, a dentist rather than the doctor extracts teeth. 11 In Copenhagen this is a special local board. Outside Copenhagen, a central Arbitra­ tion Council serves for the whole kingdom. The Council is composed of a chairman and six members, three elected by the Danish Medical Association and three by the Federa­ tion of Health Insurance Societies; the chairman elected by these if four agree, other­ wise appointed by the Minister of Social Affairs. See pp. 150/. 10 Obviously,

His Role in Denmark

117

ligated, as has been stated,12 to pay the dues of any insured person whose financial difficulties are caused by unemployment, illness, or any other circumstances over which he has no control, penalized arrears are inflicted only upon the "undeserving." The latter periodically pass out of the insured group to become the problem of the poor-law authorities. In Denmark in the year 1935, the following expenditures13 were made on health insurance benefits for insured persons. HEALTH INSURANCE BENEFITS, 1 9 3 5

kroner Cash benefits Remuneration of general practitioners Specialists "Institutional and clinic treatment Drug benefit (voluntary) (required) Surgical appliances and glasses Maternity benefit Home nursing •(Transportation of patients Physiotherapy massage (by a physiotherapist not physician) Medicinal baths (other than hospital cases) Dental benefit TOTAL

IO,6H,33I 17,762,368 2,658,928 12,662,775 6,736,699 399,31 5 874,748 2,652,515 1,040,988 36,252 374,198 160,554 2,867,309 58,837,98°

($2,865,053) (?4,795,839) ($ 717,910) ($3,418,949) {%1,818,908) ($ 107,815) ($ 136,181) ($ 716,179) ($ 281,066) (? (t

9,788) 101,033)

($ 43,349) (? 774,173) ($15,886,243)

*Only a fraction of the cost of such care; see p. log supra. f i n connection with transportation to central hospitals and not to be confused with transportation expenses met by the communes; see p. 115 supra.

The major part of the communal hospital service is, of course, rendered on behalf of insured patients. Therefore, as has been stated previously, most of the outlay of the communes on its hospitals over and above that which is paid by See p. n o supra. Beretning/ra Direktoren for Sygekassevaesenet, I Aaret 1935 (Report of the Directorate of the Sickness Insurance Funds for the year 1935), pp. 22, 23. Krone figured at 27 cents. 12 13

ιι8

The Health Insurance Doctor

the societies for hospitalization of its members is really a public expenditure for the institutional treatment of insured persons. This adds approximately 25,500,00014 kroner ($6,885,000) more to the expenditures made for health care of insured persons. 14

See Wechselmannj op. cit., p. 46.

THE HEALTH INSURANCE DOCTOR IN COPENHAGEN O be a health insurance doctor in Denmark, the practitioner must be a member of the Danish Medical Association as well as willing to work on the terms offered by health insurance practice. Theoretically, a nonorganization physician, by securing permission of the Asso­ ciation, may enter health insurance practice. Practically, this does not happen, as such permission is not given. The details of the terms of insurance practice are settled in collective agreements entered into between either the county or district (i.e. a group of counties) Medical Associa­ tions and the corresponding county or district Federations of Health Insurance Societies. To be effective, agreements must be approved by the Central Executive Council of the Danish Medical Association and by the Minister of Social Affairs. The latter, before giving his approval, consults both the Central Council of the Federated Health Insurance Societies and also the Director of the National Health Service, which is the Department of Public Health in Den­ mark. In case no agreement is arrived at, provision is made for submission of points of difference to a Central Arbitration Council1 if both parties so desire. In the event of a deadlock which one side is unwilling to arbitrate, the Minister of Social Affairs attempts to bring the parties to a settlement. Finally, should there be hopeless disagreement, the societies must arrange that their members pay their own medical bills with the right to partial reimbursement (not more than threefourths of the cost) from their organizations. It is over 1

See p.

I i 6,

n. u, for details of this Council.

120

The Health Insurance Doctor

fifteen years since such a deadlock occurred in any district in Denmark, and it is believed in medical circles that there never will be another one. There are seven district agreements effective at present in the following broad areas: (i) Copenhagen and environs; (a) Zealand (outside the Copenhagen area); (3) Jutland; (4) Bornholm; (5) Laaland; (6) Fiinen; (7) The Faroe Islands. In the Copenhagen area a limited list, which includes 71 per cent of the doctors in general practice, provides the re­ quired family doctor service for the insured population. In the rest of Denmark, it is the general rule that any physician who chooses to do so may be a health insurance general practitioner and practically all the doctors have some health insurance practice. The provision of a limited panel in Co­ penhagen has full support of the Medical Association, which believes it a wholesome deterrent to overcrowding the pro­ fession in the metropolitan area. As the conditions in Copenhagen are different from those prevailing elsewhere, Copenhagen will be discussed sep­ arately. This will be followed by a similar survey of the situa­ tion in the rest of Denmark with special reference to the Jutland collective contract as illustrative of the prevailing rules in the non-metropolitan area. The Copenhagen Area As has been stated previously, all Health Insurance Societies in Copenhagen provide complete specialist service as well as the required family doctor treatment. The Fed­ erated Health Insurance Societies of Copenhagen enter into two agreements with the local Medical Association to reg­ ulate the position of the health insurance doctors. The present agreements were signed in 1936 and are binding for ten years (Collective Contract I) and five years (Collective Contract II) respectively. Collective Contract I covers the doctors who are "reg­ ularly employed." It includes both general practitioners and

His Role in Denmark

121

also three types of specialists (i) eye, (2) ear, nose, and throat, and (3) "massage." This last is a specialization more elaborate than the physiotherapy of American medical prac­ tice. It combines corrective manipulation, diathermy, hy­ drotherapy, and corrective gymnastics. Most of the massage specialists are connected with "massage clinics" owned by the Federated Societies. These doctors handle four-fifths of the insured patients who need this special service. Pending the availability of adequate Federation-owned clinics, ad­ ditional specialists in the corrective massage field, who have their own private clinics, are employed. Collective Contract II covers occasional service, and in­ cludes physicians in the following special fields: (1) special­ ized surgery, i.e. brain, abdominal, rectal, (2) gynecology, (3) obstetrics, (4) dermatology and syphilology, (ξ) gastro­ enterology, (6) orthopedics, (7) pediatrics, (8) heart, kidney, and lungs, (9) neurology and psychiatry, (10) roentgenology. The doctors practising under the first agreement, i.e. the "regularly employed" doctors, included in 1935, 252 general practitioners, 21 eye specialists, 27 ear, nose, and throat men, and 10 "massage" specialists. When appointments are to be made to this medical panel, the Copenhagen Medical Association must be notified of prospective vacancies at least three weeks in advance of the time set for receiving applications. The Medical Association publishes notices of such vacancies in the Medical Journal. A Joint Committee of Six,2 comprising three doctors appointed by the Danish Medical Association (one of whom must be a specialist when the vacancy is in the specialist group), and three representatives selected by the Federation of Societies, then considers applications and makes recommendations to the latter Federation's business committee. The Federation appoints the doctors. This method of appointing the medical panel has not always been in operation in Copenhagen. Until 1921 all of the societies, and until 1926 some of the societies 1 Committee

on Vacancies and Appointments.

122

The Health Insurance Doctor

directly employed their own physicians. Since 1926 all fur­ ther appointments have been made through the Federation. Of course certain physicians are still practising under ap­ pointments dating back to the period when the individual society made its own arrangements for medical care. Only 113 of the 252 health insurance doctors in Copenhagen to­ day are employed by the Federation to serve all societies. Physicians performing the "occasional service" specialist services regulated by Collective Contract II must belong to the official Specialists' Organization, recognized by the Medical Association of Copenhagen. Specialists who wish to do this "occasional service" health insurance work must, be­ fore the end of September, send the Medical Association details of their office hours and consultation rooms. The Medical Association then sends the Federation of Societies by October 15 a list of available specialists. Before January ι the two organizations send out a joint notice to each society and to each general practitioner listing the specialists to whom the insured patients can be referred during the ensuing year.3 The area is divided for "family doctor" service into four­ teen general districts (with subdistricts) and the general practitioners are assigned to the various districts. The four­ teen districts average eighteen doctors to the district, roughly one doctor to each 1,500 insured. The largest number of physicians in any one district is twenty-eight, the smallest is nine. The agreement requires that at least one woman shall be selected for each district when possible, and there is one woman on the panel of health insurance doctors in each of the districts. The doctor has "preference" in the subdistrict of his residence. "Preference" means that insured persons are automatically assigned to the resident doctor of their sub3 See pp. ιy>ff. for discussion of payment of these physicians as contrasted with the regularly employed eye, ear, nose, and throat, and "massage" specialists.

His Role in Denmark

123

district unless they expressly register a desire to have another of the district doctors. Choice among the doctors assigned to the district must be made by the insured persons for a year commencing January i. Notification of desire to change doctors must be made during the month of December. The doctor's privilege of relieving himself of a patient, in the absence of agreement with his patient, must be similarly exercised, i.e. notification in December to be effective in January. If a patient is re­ jected by the doctor of his choice and asks to be assigned to another physician, ordinarily he is allocated to the district physician who was last added to the medical list. This prac­ titioner must accept him. With the permission of the physician in question, the in­ sured person may select one of the practitioners in an adja­ cent district. A married couple who are living together are required to choose the same family doctor, who serves their children as well. Societies with not more than 5,000 members are allowed to restrict the choice of physician of their members as follows: In societies with a membership of not more than 2,000 members—choice of 2 physicians from 2,000 to 3,500 members—choice of 3 physicians from 3,500 to 5,000 members—choice of 5 physicians

As in Britain, the Danish doctor must arrange for a deputy to handle his health insurance practice when he cannot at­ tend to it personally. If he does not customarily (i.e. even in private practice) make night calls, and most of these doctors do not, he does not have to do so for his insured patients. In such a case, the society furnishes at its expense, not at the expense of the regular doctors, "night watch" physicians whose function is to make night calls and report to the reg­ ular attending practitioners. The doctors, whether general practitioners or specialists, are allowed to have deputies do their visiting on Sundays and holidays. The same rule applies to Christmas Eve, which is

124

The Health Insurance Doctor

not an official holiday. All such visits are specially paid for by the societies, whether made by a regular doctor or by a substitute. A specialist may have as a deputy only a man in his own field. The doctor must notify the Federation and post at his consulting rooms full details of his deputy arrange­ ments. If he plans to be away on vacation for more than two months or wishes, for any other purpose, to be absent from his practice for longer than three months, approval of the Federation is required. A deputy arrangement necessitated by illness is referred after eighteen months to the Joint Com­ mittee which passes upon vacancies in the medical list. There is no rigid rule about limitation of medical lists, i.e. lists of potential patients. Instead, it has been provided for some time that the committee on vacancies at the end of any calendar year may in its discretion reduce (i) the list of a district physician that exceeds 2,000, (2) the list of an eye specialist that exceeds 25,000, (3) the list of an ear, nose and throat specialist which exceeds 20,000, and (4) the list of a "massage" specialist that exceeds 30,000. Not more than 500 names may be removed at any one time from the list of a district physician nor more than 5,000 from the list of a specialist. Moreover, insured persons who object to removal from their doctor's list through a "reduction" may retain their doctor by filing a request with their society. Apparently, the popular doctor is given considerable lee­ way. In 1935, 90 of the 252 district physicians, i.e. general practitioners, had lists in excess of 2,000. Thirty of these doctors had more than 3,000 apiece. These lists mean, since the wife is listed separately from her husband, about half as many households. Hospitalization, moreover, is an insurance benefit and one which as a matter of public4 policy, is gen­ erously employed by the practitioner. This removes to the medical staff of the hospital many cases which in England 4 The Danish housing situation is a recognized problem. Because of congestion, it is deemed advisable to institutionalize many patients who with more adequate homes, could be handled well with home nursing.

His Role in Denmark

12 S

remain the responsibility of the insurance doctor. One dis­ trict doctor in Copenhagen had more than 4,000 on his list. Similarly, five of the twenty-one oculists and six of the twenty-seven ear, nose, and throat men had lists substan­ tially in excess of the possible limits.8 As was emphasized in discussing the British health insurance doctor, these medical lists are, of course, not lists of actual patients but of persons who look to the doctors in question for medical care if and when they need it. It should be remarked also that insurance doctors do not attend invalidity pensioners as do the British insurance practitioners. The district physician is required to have on every week day at least one regular consultation hour, which may not be varied6 for the different days without special permission of the committee on vacancies. For the convenience of the in­ sured whose employment makes the usual office hour un­ suitable, the doctor must be available for consultation by such persons at least one hour per week after 6:00 p.m. Rules specifically require the waiting room to be accessible a quar­ ter of an hour in advance of appointments. In seeking medical care the patient is expected, except in emergencies caused by accidents or sudden illness, to identify himself as an insured member in good standing by presenting his membership book or a medical card from his society. The doctor is entitled to charge for his services if such identifica­ tion is carelessly omitted. Again, except in case of emergency, the patient is supposed to request medical calls between 8:00 and 9:00 in the morn­ ing. He must, of course, consult the doctor at his office when­ ever it is physically possible, and he is specially instructed not to call the doctor during the night or on Sundays and holidays, except in cases of "absolute necessity." 5 One ear, nose, and throat man had practically 50,000 "potential" patients and one of the eye men had a list of over 43,000. 6 Except Christmas Eve from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

126

The Health Insurance Doctor

A person entitled to insured medical service who falls ill while away from home must be given care through the local society in that region. This society is entitled to reimburse­ ment from the patient's own health insurance organization. It is specifically stipulated in the Copenhagen Collective Contract that the general practitioner's obligations do not include making laboratory analyses, giving inoculations, ex­ tracting teeth, or performing operations other than those which he can properly conduct at his office, without the assistance of a second physician. The latter proviso auto­ matically excludes operations which require a general anes­ thetic. The insured may obtain the excluded services as part of medical benefit through a specialist on the health insur­ ance panel, in the hospitals, in the outpatient departments of the hospital, or through the dental service which all Copen­ hagen societies provide. The patient, on pain of possible loss of medical benefit, is obligated to follow the instructions of his doctor and to enter the hospital for surgical or other treatment when the doctor so advises. He is not required, however, to undergo treat­ ment which may hazard his life or his health. On disobedience of his instructions, the doctor reports the matter to the in­ sured person's society. If, after discussion with the society committee, the patient persists in his refusal to obey medical orders (including the direction that the patient undergo an operation), the physician is released from obligation to treat him further. The society then either transfers the patient to another physician with the permission of the two doctors involved, or makes special medical arrangements or, if the patient's action is not legally justified, suspends medical benefit. In the last case the insured, until willing to follow directions, is left to make private arrangements for medical care at his own expense. This is somewhat in contrast to the British rule which, it will be remembered, similarly requires the patient to obey

His Role in Denmark

127

medical instructions, but specifically states that, except in case of a minor operation unreasonably refused, refusal to submit to a surgical operation or to Oaccination or inoculation of any kind shall not subject the insured person to penalty or suspension of medical benefit. Specialist service is available as part of insurance medical benefit when and to the extent that the family doctor deems it necessary. The general practitioner is regarded as the key person in the medical set-up. He has the ultimate responsibility for the health of his insured patients and it is left chiefly to his discretion, to determine how much the consultant service should be used. A specialist to whom he sends an insured patient may not even send the latter on to another specialist without consulting the family doctor. The latter is charged, however, with the duty of scrupulous care in referring cases for hospitalization and specialist treatment, and he can be penalized7 for careless, unnecessary, or "lazy" requests. The doctor is required in sending his patient to a specialist to state whether he refers him merely for diagnosis or for diag­ nosis and treatment as well. If the patient wishes specialist service beyond that which his family doctor believes is re­ quired, he may purchase it at his own expense at rates agreed upon in the collective contract between the Medical Society and the Federation of Societies in Copenhagen. As in England, the health insurance doctor must provide medicaments, bandages, etc. which he needs in treating in­ sured patients. These he requisitions on special prescription blanks, furnished by the Federation of Societies, which are honored by the firms with which the federation has made agreements. 7 Apparently such disciplinary penalties have not been inflicted! The Medical Asso­ ciation Committee, however, keeps close watch on this as on other insurance situations. See p. 156.

128

The Health Insurance Doctor

In the metropolitan area approximately 415,000 insured men and women and their children8 receive their general practitioner care from 25a health insurance doctors. The average insurance list of the Copenhagen "family doctor" is 1,616—in contrast to Britain's average of 975. Unquestion­ ably the Copenhagen average would be lower were the med­ ical panel open to all doctors instead of being a restricted list. In making any comparisons with the situation of the British health insurance doctor, however, it must be re­ membered that in Britain the insured worker's wife, unless she is herself a wage earner, is not insured. In most cases, however, she is a potential patient of the worker's doctor just as completely as if she were on his medical list. In Den­ mark, on the other hand, the wives of the workers, whether wage earners or not, are supposed to insure themselves— which they customarily do. The British doctor is permitted a medical list of 2,500, and the very popular doctor with a practice confined to wageearning families often has this maximum. To this number must be added both the non-wage-earning wives and also the children in computing the doctor's "real" medical list in the sense of persons who normally look to him for medical care. Certain of the popular general practitioners in the Copen­ hagen area (30 out of the total list of 252) have insurance lists that run from 3,000 to 4,000.9 These lists already include most married women, who, as stated, are insured in their own right. A comparable "real" list, therefore, would add merely the children under fifteen, who, while entitled to insurance medical care, are not counted on the doctors' lists.10 The difference between the situations of the two sets of doctors, so far as it relates to the number of their potential patients, is, therefore, not so great as would appear. 8 Between 175,1x10 and 200,000 in number (estimated by the Directorate of Health Insurance Societies). 9 See p. 135, third para, for comments on such practice. 10 See pp. on remuneration.

His Role in Denmark

129

From a professional standpoint, however, the difference between the health insurance situation of a "family" doctor in Copenhagen and that of his fellow practitioner in a British city is marked. The British doctor must "go it alone," rely­ ing for consultant help for his insurance charges either on charitable assistance or on purchased specialist care which he knows is beyond the patient's means.11 The Copenhagen general practitioner in contrast is equipped by the insurance scheme with a corps of well trained specialists in every field, to whom he can turn as the case demands. Similarly, through health insurance arrangements he can hospitalize his pa­ tients when they need it. In short, he can give his insured patients medical service that is as complete as contemporary medical science can make it. Evidently, such a professional life stimulates the doctor to extend his interest beyond the purely curative problems of his daily practice. The journals of the Copenhagen Medical Association have been carrying an increasing number of articles on preventive medicine. These have been emanating not from public health officials or university professors, but from practising health insurance doctors who urge that "the times demand of the family doctor that he take his proper place as the unit in a great preventive drive for eliminating illness itself." Remuneration in Copenhagen

In Copenhagen, as has been stated, the general practi­ tione r s a n d t h e s p e c i a l i s t s i n t h e t h r e e fields o f ( 1 ) e y e , ( 1 ) ear, nose, and throat, and (3) "massage," are "regularly employed" doctors. Of these regularly employed doctors, the six "massage" specialists attached to the Federation's clinics are paid salaries. All the rest receive most of their remunera11 The Insurance Acts Committee's advocacy that specialists' services be made an insurance benefit indicates that the British insurance practitioner is pushing toward an improvement of his medical position.

13θ

The Health Insurance Doctor

tion on the same basis as that in effect in Britain, i.e. capita­ tion. Unlike the British situation, however, the Copenhagen insurance doctors receive additional special payments. The family doctor is paid fees in supplement to his capitation income, for calls made on Sundays and holidays,12 and the "regularly employed" specialists receive fees for all house calls. In other words, the capitation payment is considered the general practitioner's full remuneration for both office consultation and house calls, except those made on Sundays and holidays. The specialists' capitation payment, in con­ trast, is intended to compensate him merely for office con­ sultations. Payment for a house visit which calls for special fee is on the basis of one call only, even though more than one person is treated, when the doctor attends only the husband, wife, and their children under fifteen. Should another insured member of the household also need attention, however, this is paid for as a separate call. In contrast to the regularly employed doctor who is paid a capitation sum for each member on his medical list (whether he sees him often or not at all), the "occasional" service specialists (i.e. specialists in fields other than eye, ear, nose,13 and throat, and "massage") are paid on a fee basis for items of actual service rendered. Their fees come from a central fund maintained by the Federation of Societies. Each organi­ zation contributes 50 ore (a half-krone) per member per year to this fund, and the requests of a family doctor for services paid from this fund are supposed not to cost the fund more 12 As stated previously, he does not have to make night calls, but may let the doctor employed for that purpose make his night calls. Ifhe prefers to make his own night calls, he is not specially paid for these calls. 13 Ear, nose, and throat service rendered in the home of the patient may be obtained, according to the 1936 agreement, not only from regularly employed physicians but also from physicians covered in the "occasional service" contract should the Federation make arrangements with such physicians.

His Role in Denmark than 50 ore per member on his list. Unless exceptional cir­ cumstances are shown, doctors who exceed this average may be asked to reimburse the "specialists' fund" to the extent of the excess. This rule is based upon the belief, apparently concurred in by the Medical Association, that such excess usually is caused by careless or lazy referring. Physicians with small lists (not more than 250) are not held to the halfkrone rule but are required instead to obtain permission from the Federation in making each reference. Permission ordinarily is not refused unless the central fund has been unduly depleted. The capitation figures and the special fees paid are fixed in the collective contracts between the Federation of Societies and the Copenhagen Medical Association. Deputies and sub­ stitutes are bound by these agreements equally with the men they replace. The remuneration scheme is an involved one. The scheduled figures are stated as of the year 1921 and then two-fifths of each figure set is adjusted with reference to the cost-of-living index number. The 1921 level of this number, which is used as a basis for adjustments, was the peak level of this number in the post-war period. For every 15 per cent which the index number moves above or below this basis, there is a 10 per cent increase or decrease in the adjustable portion of the remuneration schedule, i.e. in two-fifths of the remuneration sums agreed upon in the contract. It is stip­ ulated, however, that under no circumstances shall the an­ nual capitation of the family doctor fall below 6 kroner ($1.62) for each person on his list. This complicated arrangement has been determined upon with the idea of preserving a balance between the doctor's need for a certain definite income which he can count upon from year to year (three-fifths remains fixed) and the jus­ tification of some variation in his income with substantial change in the cost of living. It is significant that the threefifths which remains fixed is three-fifths of a figure deemed

132

The Health Insurance Doctor

satisfactory in a period of peak prices, i.e. a figure set for the 1921 cost of living. The cost-of-living index number is announced twice a year and if changes in the medical payment rates are called for, they go into effect for the next quarter. Insured persons are divided into three groups for capita­ tion purposes: (1) the ordinary insured, (2) insured "ad­ mitted with annotation of chronic disease," i.e. who had chronic disabilities when admitted to insurance, (3) insured who became active members of a society after passing their fortieth year. It is recognized that medical care of insured persons falling into the second and third classes may be ex­ pected to involve definitely more work on the average than in the case of the ordinary insured persons in Class I. Accord­ ingly, there are three sets of capitation figures, and the doc­ tor is paid 50 per cent more per year for responsibility for the care of each member of Class II, and roughly 35 per cent more for members of Class III than he receives for each ordinary insured person on his list (Class I). Usually the doctor receives no special payment for treating children of the insured. The capitation amount has been agreed upon with this in mind. It is set at a figure considered high for the person without dependents and low for those with dependents, and is felt to average out reasonably. In cases where children are away from home, however, the full quarterly capitation sum is paid for each child to whom any medical service is rendered in the quarter. To receive this payment, the doctor must furnish details of such cases, with the name, address, and membership number of the person through whose insurance the children are entitled to medical benefit. The annual capitation amounts for the ordinary insured are shown on the following table:14 14 Schedules

for Class II and Class III call for increased amounts as explained above.

His Role in Oenmark CLASS I

(Ordinary insured persons, admitted to active membership before the age of 40 and without "annotation of chronic disease") "Full list" tType of Physician Capitation Income Annual Capitation General practitioners usual "full list" 2,000 18,000 kr. (¢4,860) 9.00 kr. (¢2.43) Eye specialists usual "full list" 25,000 16,000 kr. (¢4,320) 0.64 kr. (¢0.173) Ear, nose, and throat specialists usual "full list" 20,000 13,600 kr. (¢3,672) 0.68 kr. (¢0.184) "Massage" specialists usual "full list" 30,000 0.68 kr. (¢0.184) 20,400 kr. (¢5,508)

It should be added that, as previously stated, the "full list" figure is not a hard and fast maximum. Thirty of the general practitioners in Copenhagen had lists of more than 3,000 in 1935, and many of the specialists received capita­ tions for five to ten thousand more than the usual "full list" of their category. Special fees are paid in addition to the capitation sums for calls which the family doctor makes on Sundays and holidays (covering a twenty-four hour period of 8 :oo a.m. of the holi­ day to 8:00 a.m. of the day after). The fees are graduated according to the time of the calls, as follows: SUPPLEMENTARY FEES Sunday and Holiday House Calls, General Practitioner 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. 8:00 p.m. to 12:00 m. 1 2 : 0 0 m. to 8:00 a.m.

6.00 kr. ($1.62) 8.00 kr. ( $ 2 . 1 6 ) 12.00 kr. (¢3.24)

As in Britain, the doctor is paid every quarter. Every person on his list at the end of the quarter is counted in com­ puting his check, which must be sent to the doctor within the first month following the quarter paid for. The eye, ear, nose, and throat specialists' special fees (in addition to capitation) include a house call fee which is two and a half times the general practitioner's daytime rate if no surgical work is involved, and more than four times that rate when service of a surgical nature is required.

134

The Health Insurance Doctor

The specialist who is asked to give "massage" treatment in the insured patient's home receives considerably lower additional fees. Such home treatment is given only with special permission of the society acting on application signed by the specialist and stating in detail the extent of the con­ templated treatment. Physiotherapy may be given either by the doctor personally or under his supervision by a physio­ therapist authorized by the Danish Medical Association. For obstetrical aid rendered by the family doctor either at childbirth or on abortion, he receives a special extra payment of 30 kroner. No distinction is made between instrument and non-instrument cases. An obstetrical specialist called in by the family doctor receives 10 kroner for a consultation and, for a delivery or assistance at the delivery of the child, he is paid 50 kroner or merely three-fifths more than the general practitioner's special fee. As in the case of other occasional specialist service, the family doctor is held responsible to call such assistance only when circumstances justify. The obstetrical service fees paid to the family doctor and to the specialist are provided from a special maternity benefit fund. Deputies who substitute during the absence of a general practitioner receive for all house calls the same special fees as are paid to the usual practitioner for calls made on Sun­ days and holidays, i.e.: 6 kroner { $ 1 . 6 1 ) between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. 8 " ($2.16) " 8:00 p.m. and 12:00 p.m. 12 " ($3.24) " 12:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m.

Young doctors, when waiting to be put on the insurance list and when first on the list, while they are building up an in­ surance practice, often apply for deputy work, i.e. "night watch"15 and Sunday and holiday assignments. If a doctor substitutes for several physicians or is himself an insurance practitioner, he may not without special permission from the 15 The doctor on "night watch" gets paid for visits even to his own patients, when made in his substitute capacity on Sundays, holidays, and at night.

His Role in Denmark

135

Federation of Societies undertake responsibility for sub­ stitute practice involving lists of more than 4,000 insured persons. Fees for miscellaneous services,16 which are considered out­ side insurance obligations and which, therefore, may be exacted directly from the patient are regulated in amount by the collective contracts. The fees for such services add in a small way to the health insurance doctor's income. Many of the health insurance doctors have a "private practice" in supplement to their insurance work. This is ap­ parently the case with most of the specialists and with those general practitioners who have lists of less than 2,000. A few of the latter who have between 2,000 and 3,000 on their in­ surance lists also do some private work. Health insurance officials believe that those with lists of 3,000 or more do not have any practice other than health insurance practice. Collective Contract II

The "occasional service" physicians whose fees are reg­ ulated, with other conditions of their health insurance ser­ vice, by Collective Contract II17 receive fees that range, if the work is office service, from 8 kroner for a first consulta­ tion to 10 kroner for single treatments, i.e. approximately the annual capitation fee paid the family doctor. The fee is doubled for complete examination and written report of diagnosis18 and 50 per cent more is added to this in case of minor operations. Each of these fees is increased 50 per cent when service is rendered in the patient's home. X-ray ex­ aminations are paid at rates from 15 to 40 kroner ($4.05 to ¢10.80). 16 These include giving (i) general health certificates at 3 kr.; (2) medical examination for admission into a health insurance society at 3 kr.; and (3) certification for entry into an institution for abnormals at 12 kr. 17 The present contract became effective July 1, 1936, to be effective until 1941 and thereafter until revoked by six months' notice from either the Federation of Societies or the Medical Association. 18 cf. the "1 guinea" (#5.25) specialist consultant service in London, p. 86 supra.

136

The Health Insurance Doctor

The specialists who serve on the hospital staffs, where all serious operations are performed, of course add to the physicians who render services to the insured families. These doctors are paid only by the hospitals and not directly by the Insurance Societies or their members. As nearly 90 per cent of the population received insurance benefits and all serious surgical cases and most of the serious medical cases are hos­ pitalized, the better part of the time of the hospital staff is spent in operating upon and treating insurance patients.19 The salaries of the medical staffs, therefore, should be men­ tioned in discussing the remuneration of the health insurance doctors. In 1935 the forty-six Health Insurance Societies in the Copenhagen area paid their 252 family doctors 2,874,720 kroner (!776,174.40), an average (arithmetical mean) of 11,408 kroner (¢3,080) per doctor. This amount constituted 2.7 times the full-time annual earnings of the skilled worker in the metropolitan area and four times the similar earnings of the unskilled wage earner. The median income was 10,934 kroner ($2,952). The largest capitation income, i.e. not count­ ing "extra fees," which any one general practitioner received from health insurance practice was 28.994 kroner (¢7.828). This was over 7 times as much as the skilled worker could earn in a year and over ten times what could be earned by the unskilled man. As the Copenhagen general practitioner has his office in his home, and does not in most cases employ a nurse, most of his income is "net." It is interesting to compare this situation with that of American general practitioners as revealed by the Hoover "Committee on Costs of Medical Care."20 During the peak 19 Not only in Copenhagen but elsewhere in Denmark, rural physicians perform operations in communal hospitals on invitation. See p. 146 infra. Some of the time of the hospital doctors is, of course, given to non-insured, although most of it is spent in treat­ ment of the insured and their families. See p. 117 supra. Statistics of these salaries are not available in Denmark. Only total figures of the operating costs of the hospitals can be given. See p. 118 supra. 20 See Committee on Costs of Medical Care. Pub. No. 24, The Incomes of Physicians, pp. 109, 117.

His Role in Denmark

137

year of "prosperity"—1929—the average (arithmetical mean) net income was $3,900 and the median net income was $2,900. This refers to all American general practitioners— those who attend the well-to-do as well as those who attend working families. This average was just about 25 per cent more than the maximum annual earnings of the highest paid skilled mechanics in an American city in 1935, while the median figure was actually less than the earning capacity of such a worker. As the distribution of medical income from health insurance is determined chiefly by the size of the medical lists of the doctors, the distribution in 1935 of the insured among the Copenhagen doctors is of interest: DISTRIBUTION OF INSURED AMONG D O C T O R S G E N E R A L PRACTITIONERS. C O P E N H A G E N ,

Number of insured on medical list Number of doctors

1935

Under 501- 1,001- 1,501-2,001-2,501- 3,001-3,501- Over 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000 3,500 4,000 4,000 43 38 43 38 39 21 19 10 1

Translating this table into one showing the corresponding medical incomes21 from health insurance practice produces the table below: DISTRIBUTION OF H E A L T H INSURANCE INCOMES G E N E R A L PRACTITIONERS

Size of Income Under 3,530 kr. ($953) 3)53°-7)°6O kr- ($953-? I >9° 6 ) 7,060-10,590 kr. ($1,90642,859) 10,590-14,120 kr. ($2,85943,812) 14,120-17,650 kr. ($3,81244,765) 17,650-21,180 kr. ($4,76545,718) 21,180-24,710 kr. ($5,71846,671) 24,710-28,240 kr. ($6,67147,624) Over 24,240 kr. ($7,624)

Number of Doctors 43 38 43 38 39 21 19 10 1

Per Cent of Doctors 17.00 15.00 17.00 15.00 15.04 8-33 7-53 4.00 0.50

In addition to the amount paid for family doctor service in Copenhagen, the sum of 935,809 kroner ($252,668.43) was 21 Assuming "extra" fees are evenly distributed, computed at 7.06 kroner per person on list—converting the krone at 27 cents, actual capitation in 1935 was 6.35 kroner. For further details of Copenhagen health insurance incomes, see De Samvirkende Sygekasser, Kobenhavn Beretningfor Aaret, 1935.

138

The Health Insurance Doctor

paid to specialists, some of whom were paid more than 30,000 kroner ($8,100) for this part of their practice. The above figures, of course, do not include the remuneration of the hospital staff doctors who attended the insured patients. These patients accounted for more than 1,600,000 hospital days (the very high rate of nearly two and two-thirds days per insured beneficiary) in 1935, a condition which, as pre­ viously explained, is related to the deliberate public policy22 of institutionalizing sickness cases when congested home conditions make home nursing difficult. 22 Dr. Frandzen, D enmark's Director of the National Health Service, called attention of the author to the fact that the high hospitalization rate is a direct reflection of this policy. The wife, he stated, can care for the husband who is ill when there are no children. When there are children or when the wife is bedridden and needs constant attention, crowded apartment house accommodations make home nursing impracti­ cable and hospitalization, not otherwise required, is encouraged as a public health policy. See p. 124, n. 4 supra.

THE HEALTH INSURANCE DOCTOR IN NONMETROPOLITAN DENMARK

A

In General

S previously stated, outside the Copenhagen area any general practitioner belonging to the Medical Asso­ ciation who wishes to practise on the terms set by the regional collective agreement, may do so. The terms of ser­ vice of such specialists' attention as may be offered are fixed, for the most part, not by regional collective agreements, but in one contract between the Central Union of Federated Societies and the central committee of the Danish Medical Association. Each health insurance society determines in­ dividually whether to provide such services and must, of course, abide by the terms of the central contract in so doing. About 750 funds outside the metropolitan area have in fact made contracts with ophthamologists and otologists.1 Al­ though no central record is kept of the extent to which these societies actually permit their insured members access to these specialists, it is believed at the Directorate of Health Insurance Societies that the urban societies at least provide such special help freely as needed. The regional agreements governing family doctor service differ in certain details, but their major provisions are similar. The practitioner is obligated to render all necessary "family doctor" service, both at his office and at the patient's home. Unlike the Copenhagen family doctor, the rural prac1 Although orthopedic surgeons, dermatologists, and "massage" specialists are ar­ ranged for in a few of the small cities, the only services generally regulated by the central contract are those of eye, ear, nose, and throat doctors and "massage" special­ ists.

140

TheHealthlnsuranceDoctor

titioner must do work that requires the assistance of a col­ league and he must assist a colleague on demand. He must extract teeth when no insurance arrangement with dentists exist. Many, but not all, of the non-metropolitan communal hospitals have a surgeon for medical director. The country doctor is expected to perform major operations when neces­ sary, and render many other services which the metropolitan health insurance doctor is free to turn over to a specialist or to a hospital staff.2 The agreements provide for two alternative methods of payment of practitioners, Tariff I, the Copenhagen method, i.e. chiefly capitation with supplementary fees for special services, and Tariff II, payment for each unit of service rendered according to a fee schedule. Ordinarily the selection between Tariff I and Tariff II is made by a local Federation of Societies rather than by an individual health insurance organization. Any society, how­ ever, may elect to use either tariff (or to change from one tariff to the other) even when the general area has not so de­ cided, unless there are special conditions involved in medical service to its members which would make such an arrange­ ment unreasonable. The physicians concerned are permitted to challenge as unreasonable a single society's selection of method of payment. The local Federation of Societies then takes up the question with the local Medical Association. If they are unable to come to an agreement, the question is referred to Denmark's Central Council of Arbitration3 for decision. Similarly, if the doctors practising for a society desire to change from one tariff to the other they may submit the re­ quest to their local Medical Association. If it approves the change, the association then attempts to negotiate the change with the local Federation of Societies, and negotia2 The central hospitals have staffs of specialists, including of course surgeons. See p. 158 infra for discussion of these hospitals. 3 See p. 116, η. 11, for composition, etc., of this arbitration council.

His Role in Denmark

141

tions failing, sends the question to the Central Council of Arbitration for determination. No newly organized society that admits members without medical examination is allowed to select capitation without obtaining permission from the local Medical Association. Tariff I (capitation) is used by all the societies in the urban areas and by 350 societies in rural areas which include about 900,000 members, i.e. more than half of the insured persons outside of Copenhagen. Tariff II is used by 1,100 rural organizations with a membership of 800,000. As there are some 2,100,000 insured persons in Denmark, it follows that the doctors serving 38 per cent of the insured are paid on a fee basis, and the practitioners who attend 62 per cent of the insured receive capitation payments. There is, moreover, a definite trend toward the adoption of the capitation method. Each year a larger number of societies have employed this system of paying their health insurance physicians. In 1935 the general practitioners outside Copenhagen were paid 14,887,648 kroner (!4,019,674.96) for health insurance service. Assuming that every general practitioner in practice in these areas (there were 1,124) served some insurance pa­ tients, this meant an average annual income from health insurance work of 13,245 kroner (!3,576.15) per doctor. This is three and three-fifths times the maximum earnings of the skilled worker of the towns and more than four times the income of the full-time skilled worker in the rural areas.4 This estimated average is the lowest possible figure, and of course if the number of doctors participating in health in­ surance practice was actually less, the average income was greater. No official bureau has actual record of the exact number of general practitioners in health insurance practice outside of Copenhagen, but it is believed by the government's 4 Such a town worker's maximum income is estimated at 3,600 kroner by the govern­ ment statistical bureau, the rural workers at 2,800 kroner.

142

The Health Insurance Doctor

supervisory office that "practically all" such doctors have some insured patients.5 In addition to health insurance income from the societies, the communes paid the travelling expenses incurred by these doctors in attending to their health insurance practice. The collective contract for Jutland governs the health insurance practice of the doctors who serve the most pop­ ulous district outside of Copenhagen,6 containing more than half of the insured who live elsewhere than in the capital. It is, therefore, in itself the most important of the agreements other than that which functions in the metropolitan area. Further, as previously remarked, it differs from the other five contracts in only the less significant details. Its terms in consequence may be deemed illustrative of all the collective agreements operative in Denmark outside of her capital. In Jutland The doctor who puts his name on the panel for health insurance work, normally is available to patients within a ten-kilometer radius by land.7 He may, however, by giving notice through an appropriate committee of his Medical Association, confine his practice to the town in which he lives, or to a specified rural area. Further, if a doctor has less than ten members of a given society on his medical list, he is not obligated to practise for that society unless there is no alternative panel doctor accessible for these members. If a society has insured members who do not live within ten kilometers of any health insurance doctor, the nearest panel doctor within a distance of fifteen kilometers is ob­ ligated to serve. The extent of choice of doctor permitted to the insured person may depend upon the method of payment of phy­ sician which is used by the society. 5 Information furnished by Direktor Borberg in Copenhagen, August 1936, at Directorate of the Health Insurance Funds. 6 One-fifth of Denmark's insured live in Copenhagen. 7 Because of Denmark's many islands, this is specified. (This is 6¼ miles.)

His Role in Denmark

143

In all cases where the capitation basis is used, members are required, as in Copenhagen, to select a doctor for a year at a time (January to January) and a married couple must have the same doctor. Ordinarily they may choose any doc­ tor within ten kilometers. When the doctors are paid on a fee basis, usually the in­ sured may go freely from one doctor to another within the permitted radius. For economy purposes, however, societies are permitted to require choice for a full year even with the fee basis. Experience, they believe, has demonstrated that the patient will make fewer demands for medical service when he is held down to one physician than when he (mostly she, it is alleged) is permitted frequent change of medical scene. The list of doctors available for choice is posted at the society's office and many of the organizations also furnish annual printed slips of such information for their members. Ordinarily the doctor, at his own expense, must provide a deputy for periods when he is to be away. An exception is made, however, for short absences (not more than three days) in localities with only one resident physician. Should an insured person need medical attention under such circum­ stances, he may call in another health insurance doctor, and the society must pay him according to Tariff II. In case the doctor selected dies or gives up his practice, insured persons on his list may leave the substitute or suc­ cessor whom he designates, at the beginning of the following quarter. Similarly, when a deputy is employed for longer than six weeks, for reasons other than illness or post-grad­ uate medical study, the members of his list may choose another physician at the first of the next quarter. In case the doctor practising under Tariff I is required to treat more than one person when making a specially paid for house call, he is paid for only one such call. If, however, he is practising under Tariff II (i.e. fees), he is paid additionally on an office consultation basis for each extra person attended. As in Copenhagen, except in emergencies, the insured in

144

The Health Insurance Doctor

applying for treatment must identify himself either by pre­ senting his membership book or by some alternative method approved by his society, such as presentation of a medical report card. The doctor may demand a fee if identification is not made. The first medical service to an eligible insured person, however, will be paid for by his society even if the insured carelessly forgets his credentials. The patient is required, as in Copenhagen, to make all possible concessions to the doctor's convenience. Unless the physical condition of the patient prevents, the doctor is to be seen at his office during the hours set for consultation. Re­ quests for house calls are to be in before 10:00 a.m. in the country and before 9:00 in town practice, except when emergencies arise. Further, if the insured calls for medical service at night or on Sundays and holidays in other than urgent circumstances (i.e. accident, sudden illness, or re­ lapse) he must pay for it himself. The doctor, however, even in these cases, gets a certain amount of protection by the guaranty from the society of 50 per cent of such bills in case they remain unpaid for two months after presentation. The other 50 per cent he must collect from his patient as he does his "private practice" bills. The patient must, as in Copenhagen, obey medical in­ structions and accept hospitalization when the doctor orders it. He is specifically obligated to undergo the free medical treatment which is furnished by the commune in all parts of Denmark in case of communicable disease (including ve­ nereal disease). The patient's refusal to follow orders, how­ ever, relieves the Jutland doctor only of the duty of visiting the patient in his home and not of all medical obligations as under the Copenhagen arrangements. Remuneration Jutland Contract) As in Copenhagen, remuneration schedules are stated in the terms of the 1921 cost of living and adjusted in the same way. Forty per cent of all stipulated remuneration is subject

His Role in Denmark

HS

to a io per cent increase or decrease for each fifteen points that the index number is above or below the 1921 level of 264. The capitation amounts of Tariff I for general practitioners are identical with those effective in Copenhagen.8 More ser­ vices are specially paid for, however, than in the capital, and the amounts paid are frequently larger. Not only is obstet­ rical aid (including abortion cases) on a fee basis as in Copenhagen, but also: (1) First treatment of serious injuries or burns; (2) setting and bandaging major fractures and dis­ locations; (3) assisting another health insurance doctor; (4) emergency house calls required to be made immediately or during scheduled consultation hours; (5) extraction of teeth; and (6) night calls. Charges similar but often larger than those allowed in Copenhagen are permitted for the issue of certificates needed in entering mental hospitals, tuberculosis sanatoria, and certain convalescent institutions, for vaccination and death certificates, and for medical certificates needed by applicants for admission into the Health Insurance Societies. The eye, ear, nose, and throat specialists, if paid by capitation, receive a little more per insured person on their lists than in the metropolitan area with certain "extras" as in Copenhagen. The fee schedule to be used when Tariff II9 is employed as the basis of the general practitioner's remuneration is elaborate, covering services ranging from a consultation by telephone at a.50 kroner to a tonsil-and-adenoid operation or first treatment of serious injuries at 20 kroner. The latter is about two days' wages of the provincial metal worker, more than three times the daily wage of the provincial engineering laborer, and four times that of the agricultural 8 i.e. 9 kroner per person on the doctor's medical list (18 kroner for a married couple) with 50 per cent additional for persons who entered with a chronic disability and 35 per cent extra in the case of persons who became active participating members after reach­ ing the age of forty. See pp. 132-3 supra. ' A higher fee schedule is used for the same services in case of specialists.

146

The Health Insurance Doctor

laborer.10 Fees for house calls increase in amount with the inconvenience of the hour. Rates paid by the funds to the specialists under Tariff II, in contrast to the arrangements in Copenhagen, where hos­ pitals with full specialist staffs are available, include fees for operations performed as "guest surgeons"11 in both hos­ pitals and hospital clinics, as well as rates for operations per­ formed at the doctor's office or in the patient's home. The operating fees range from 13.5 kroner, which is three days' earnings of a Danish agricultural laborer, to 135 kroner, or the equivalent of more than a month's pay for a farm laborer.12 The rates for office and house calls are lower than in Copenhagen. When capitation (Tariff I) is used, the doctors must be paid, as in Copenhagen, every quarter, unless arranged otherwise locally with agreement of the local Medical Asso­ ciation. The list of the quarter is taken as of the sixteenth day of the second month of the quarter. Payment under Tariff II (fee basis), and also the fees for extra services paid in supplement to Tariff I are due quar­ terly, semi-annually, or even annually, as arranged with the individual physician. Dilatory settlement of accounts is penalized. The doctor must render account within five weeks of the period it covers or suffer a 10 per cent deduction. In like fashion, if he receives his check more than a month after his statement of services rendered has reached the society, the physician is entitled to an additional 10 per cent. In case certain items are challenged, only the disputed portion of the account may be withheld. 10In 1934 and 1935 the provincial forge worker earned 11 kroner, the engineering laborer 6 kroner, and the agricultural worker averaged 4 kroner 60 ore. Denmark, Statistisk Aarbog, 1936, pp. 124-6. 11 With permission of the communal hospital doctor. 12 These are the wages of a farm worker who boards himself. When board is provided, wages are reduced one-third.

PAPER WORK INVOLVED IN DANISH HEALTH INSURANCE PRACTICE S in Britain, the Danish health insurance doctor has "certification" responsibilities. His statement of the insured person's incapacity for work is accepted, as the British doctor's ordinarily is, in establishing the right to cash sickness benefit. The responsibility of the Danish doctor, furthermore, is more complete than that of the health insurance doctor in England, as there is no medical referee system in Denmark. Weekly reports for the society must be signed by the doctor while the worker is at home sick. Sim­ ilarly, the doctor must issue a "signing off" report when he deems the insured once more ready for work. In contrast to the British situation,1 neither the Copenhagen agreement nor the law specifies whether diagnosis shall be included in the incapacity certificates, and practice is not uniform. The disability is often specified in Latin and fre­ quently abbreviations of the Latin terms are employed. All diagnostic information is, of course, ordinarily confidential, and administrative officers are required under pain of severe penalties to observe absolute secrecy with reference to the medical reports received by the societies. In case of tuberculosis or venereal disease, the attending physician, whether in insurance work or in private practice, is obligated to notify the appropriate health authorities. Also, he is required, as are teachers, societies, etc., in the event of discovering any disability tending toward invalidity, to re­ port the case to the Invalidity Institute, the governmental agency which administers Denmark's compulsory Invalidity 1 See

pp. 49-50 supra.

148

The Health Insurance Doctor

Insurance Law. The Institute is furnished this information to enable it to prevent invalidity when possible, by providing special medical treatment or other necessary care. The In­ stitute pays for this treatment, when there is a reasonable chance that it may prevent invalidity or lessen its degree.2 If the case has been turned over completely to a specialist, he and not the "family doctor" must do the certifying. If, however, the specialist is acting only in a consultant capacity, the general practitioner is responsible for the paper work. If an insured person, for any reason, is arranging for treat­ ment from a non-health insurance doctor (for which he must pay individually) the regularly employed family doctor in the subdistrict must issue certificates only on special request from the society involved. This situation is an exceptional one. When the attending doctor, whether general practitioner or specialist, wishes to hospitalize his patient, he must fill out a prescribed form, which includes a diagnosis of the case. Issuance of weekly reports to enable the insured to obtain "continued" sickness benefit due from the commune, and the signing of a miscellaneous group of certificates, such as disinfection certificates, school certificates to exempt the child from certain types of school work, death certificates for use in collecting funeral benefits from insurance societies, etc., are included in the doctor's health insurance duties.3 2 Otherwise, it may not pay for treatment. So long as the person can make a fair con­ tribution toward his self-support, he gets treatment through health insurance. When he is in receipt of an invalidity pension, medical care for which the Institute cannot pay must be provided by the communal authorities. It is in dispute whether the latter may exact a means test before providing medical care. Dr. Hulck, director of the Invalidity Institute, construes Sec. 69 of the Social Insurance Invalidity provisions as requiring the communal authorities to furnish the care as a right of the pensioner and without a means test, but this is resisted by certain communes. No test case has yet been brought. 3 In addition, as stated previously (p. 135 supra), the collective contracts stipulate fees which may be charged for other reports and paper work which the physician may be called upon to arrange for an insured person, such as a certificate to obtain "sick pay" from an employer who makes such provision for his workers. Certificates other than those for which rates are set must be furnished by the doctor at the minimum rate set for such work in the fee schedule of the Medical Association.

His Role in Denmark

149

In Copenhagen, "control slips" must be signed when the doctor makes a call that involves a "control" payment by the member, and an itemized statement of all work specially paid for must be presented in all but physiotherapy cases within a week of service rendered. However, physiotherapy treatment which is given in the home of the insured may be reported quarterly. The paper work outside the metropolitan area varies with the method of paying the physicians. If capitation (Tariff I) is used, the doctors are, with minor exceptions, in the same position as the Copenhagen practitioners.4 If the fee system (Tariff II) is employed, the doctor must, of course, keep many more records. Not only disability certificates and con­ trol slips, but also detailed records of all units of medical service rendered must be prepared and forwarded to the societies, as remuneration is adjusted in accordance with the service rendered. The collective contracts specifically obligate the doctor, when paid on a fee basis, to indicate the time, date, etc., and also, in Danish, not Latin, the nature of the service rendered. As in Britain, standardized forms for all reports, certifi­ cates, control slips, etc., are furnished the physicians for use in health insurance work; thereby reducing the insurance paper work to the minimum. 4 e.g. in the non-metropolitan area giving a death certificate is not an insurance obliga­ tion.

DISCIPLINARY CONTROL OF THE PHYSICIAN

I

N contrast to British arrangements, there are no medical officers to act as referees and to give medical supervision to the clinical records kept by the Danish health in­ surance doctors. It is not denied, of course, that an occasional Danish doctor is less scrupulous or less careful than he should be about the financial interests of a Health Insurance Society nor is it even asserted that under no circumstances does a Danish doctor fail to fulfil his strictly professional obligations to his insured patients. It is, however, the conviction, not only of the Danish doctors but of everyone connected with health insurance administration, that matters which cannot be adjusted by an informal telephone call or conference are not apt to occur; that the machinery set up to hear and ad­ just the occasional complaints against the health insurance doctors is adequate to meet all needs; that to set up a scheme of supervisory medical officers would involve sheer waste of time and money. The record bears out these contentions. In more than twenty years not one Danish doctor has been denied the right to continue health insurance practice. Nor has any Copenhagen insurance practitioner in this period, been penalized officially by being required to forego certain of his remuneration or to reimburse the society for "unnecessary costs," as the disciplinary machinery permits. (This does not mean that adjustments have never been made between the doctor and the society, in formal or informal conference.) Disciplinary Machinery in Copenhagen It will be remembered that the Copenhagen Collective Contract on health insurance medical service calls for an

His Role in Denmark

Appointment or "Vacancies" Committee,1 composed of three representatives of the Copenhagen Medical Association and three of the Federated Health Insurance Societies. This committee includes among its powers and duties that of act­ ing on complaints from a society that a doctor has imposed upon it unnecessary expenses. Such complaints may rest upon claims that the physician has been guilty of extravagant prescription, or has made unnecessary calls requiring special payment, unnecessary references to specialists, or unjus­ tified hospitalization of a patient. After investigation, which in practice would mean special consideration by the members of the committee who represent the organized profession, the committee may, as in Britain, "surcharge" the doctor in an appropriate amount by deduction from his next quarterly check. The doctor may appeal against such a surcharge and the society may appeal if the committee itself fails to sur­ charge. The matter then would go to the Arbitration Com­ mittee described in the next paragraph. If other formal charges should be brought against a doctor in Copenhagen, either by a member or by a society's agent, the rules require that they be filed in formal written form with the administrative officers of the society involved, within six weeks of the episode complained of. These officers, unless convinced that the charge is frivolous, must present the complaint to the doctor within a month of receiving it. The doctor, in turn, is then entitled to two weeks to file a statement on his own behalf. The officers then must endeavor to settle the question by direct negotiation with the doctor. That failing, either the physician or the society may submit written statements to the Medical Association and the Fed­ eration of Health Insurance Societies, each of which will ap­ point a mediator. If the mediator cannot adjust the matter, it must go back to the two organizations (the Medical Asso­ ciation and the Federation of Societies) for decision. Finally, should there be a case of deadlock between these organiza1

See p. I2i supra.

1$2

TheHealthlnsuranceDoctor

tions, the matter would pass to formal arbitration by a stand­ ing Arbitration Committee organized specially for the Copen­ hagen area and composed of two representatives (and two alternates) from each of the two organizations and a fifth member chosen by the four. If the four cannot agree upon this fifth appointment, they must select a chairman, who appoints one of the Danishjudiciary as the additional mem­ ber. Rules require this fifth "independent" arbitrator to be unconnected with either organization. He serves for a fouryear renewable period. The Arbitration Committee is empowered to make its own rules and is specifically authorized to negotiate a settlement between the parties at any stage in the proceeding. Decisions are binding and non-appealable. If necessary, the committee may call upon the courts to enforce compliance with its orders, and enforcement costs are assessable to the resisting party.

Oisciplinary Machinery in Non-Metropolitan Denmark In the non-metropolitan areas, the disciplinary procedure differs from that arranged in the capital in the elimination of the Vacancies Committee and in the substitution of a na­ tional Central Arbitration Board for the local Arbitration Committee of Copenhagen. If an insured person complains of his doctor, his society first hears the doctor's explanation. If convinced that the complaint needs investigation, the so­ ciety then forwards the charges to the Central Council of the District Federation of Societies. Similarly, a society that feels itself imposed upon by a doctor sends its case to this same central council. The doctor who has a grievance files his statement with the Sick Benefit Committee of the District Medical Association. The Federation's Central Council and the Medical Asso­ ciation's Sick Benefit Committee attempt to settle all such

His Role in Denmark

153

situations by negotiation. On failure of the two agencies to agree upon the disposal of a case, the matter goes for settle­ ment to the Central Board of Arbitration set up by the 1933 Social Security Act.2 It has the same powers as those of Copenhagen's Arbitration Committee, described above. As in Britain, the Danish rules provide that a doctor against whom charges are filed may not escape his respon­ sibilities to the disciplinary authorities by resignation. No doctor in the non-metropolitan area, and in Copen­ hagen no health insurance doctor who has been employed for longer than a year and a half (during which period dismissal is permitted on three months' notice), may be removed from the panel except for cause. The doctor who believes the can­ cellation of his contract unjustified or believes that he has been otherwise injured by a society or by an insured person, files a complaint with his Medical Association and with the Federation of Societies. It is then adjusted by the steps out­ lined above for settlement of complaints against a doctor. The ultimate responsibility for directly depriving a health insurance doctor of the right to continue in insurance prac­ tice thus rests with the local Arbitration Committee in Copenhagen and with the Central Board of Arbitration else­ where. Disputes between the Medical Association and the Fed­ erated Societies over the interpretation of the terms of the collective contracts also go to the respective arbitration bodies for settlement. In the twenty-year period between 1917 and 1936 the Central Arbitration Board was called upon to meet in every year but two (1919 and 1920). It held thirty-eight sessions in the eighteen years in which it convened and considered a total of seventy-two3 cases. These sessions and cases were distributed as follows: 2 See

pp. 104-6 supra for discussion of this act. of case records furnished by Direktor Borberg.

3 Transcript

154

The Health Insurance Doctor Tear

1917 1918 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 I 9 27 1928 Ϊ929 I 93° !93 1 1932 1933 T 934 R 935 1936 TOTAL

Session

I I I 3 3 I 2 2 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2

Cases 1

I 4 6 6 I 4 4 4 6 5 3 4 5 2

3 3

3 7 S

38

72

Of the seventy-two cases adjudicated, fifty-two were dis­ putes over the meaning of allegedly ambiguous provisions of the agreement, one involving the propriety of oral discus­ sion of and publication of grievances against a doctor instead of pursuing the complaint procedure of the agreement. Fifteen were disputes over proposed change from Tariff II to I. The latter were resolved by permitting the change in one instance only in part of the geographical area concerned, by refusing it altogether in three, and permitting it altogether in eleven cases. In five cases the doctor was accused of deliberately causing the society unnecessary expense, and his bill was challenged in consequence. In three of these cases, the specific ground of complaint was that the doctor kept the insured person at home and ran up a visitation bill when he should have hos­ pitalized the patient (hospitalization would have cost the fund far less). In one instance the additional misconduct of a 25 per cent overcharge for mileage was alleged. Two of these

His Role in Denmark

155

hospitalization disputes were resolved against the doctor and one in his favor. In two cases the doctor was accused of making wholly un­ necessary visits. One of these disputes had been settled (through conciliation proceedings) by the fund paying and the doctor accepting a reduced amount in lieu of the bill presented. The doctor subsequently repudiated this com­ promise and, with the support of the local Medical Associa­ tion, carried the case to the appellate arbitration body. He argued that the informal conciliation proceedings were void as violative of the collective medical agreement's require­ ments of written complaint and formal hearing in all cases in which the fund alleged medical impropriety. This contention was held to be an unsound one and the doctor was forced to abide by the compromise he had accepted. The other "un­ necessary visitation" case was decided in favor of the physician. In addition to these five cases, two of the "interpretation of agreement" cases involved a challenge of bills presented by the doctor, and implied at least a questioning of the doc­ tor's good faith. In one case, the bills were questioned on the score that control slips were not issued or asked for by the doctor. In addition there seemed to be a question about the patient's need of the consultations. The doctor had not asked her to come to his office, and it was not established that her physical condition necessitated this medical attention. This case was resolved against the doctor. In the other case, the questioned bill concerned telephone consultations for which no proof was offered beyond the presented bill. This case was resolved in the doctor's favor. In summary, it may be said that in the twenty-year period since the board's creation, not a single case involving such professional misconduct as neglect of a patient has come before the board. Only seven disputes which involved al­ leged overcharging or improper charging by the Danish health insurance doctor have reached the formal arbitration

156

The Health Insurance Doctor

stage. In only four of these cases was the doctor actually held guilty. In two instances, he was granted his full claim. In the remaining case, he was held to the compromised reduced bill which he had agreed orally to accept in conciliation proceed­ ings. This record definitely bears out the belief of the profes­ sion and of lay administrators that the Denmark health in­ surance scheme has no need of additional supervisory machinery. As in Britain, at every step of procedure which may affect the health insurance doctor in Denmark, it is arranged that representatives of the organized medical profession shall play an important part. The uniformly high standard main­ tained in the medical profession in Denmark, trained as its members are in one excellent medical school, removes all likelihood of serious disciplinary situations involving the health insurance doctor. Moreover, the practitioner who tends to carelessness is subjected in practice to the control of the organized profession, which apparently "quietly takes care of" his case within the organization. As no physician may be employed in health insurance work unless he belongs to the Medical Association,4 expulsion from the organization would terminate health insurance employment, wholly aside from the disciplinary procedure outlined. Through the con­ trol which this situation places in the hands of the Medical Association, quite independently of any machinery set up in the collective contracts or in the health insurance law, the organized Danish medical profession can and does keep the health insurance doctor up to an enviably high standard of responsibility in all phases of his professional obligations. 4 Or

has special permission from the association. See p. 119 supra.

ATTITUDE OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION Attitude cFoward Certification Responsibilities

T

HE profession in Denmark can hardly be said to have an "attitude" toward their certification respon­ sibilities in the sense of regarding them as something apart from their ordinary professional obligations. Even more so than in England, where the existence of a corps of medical referees at least emphasizes the certification duty, the Copenhagen doctor is puzzled by the suggestion that he might think his certification duty an imposition. It may be doubted that such an idea has ever occurred to him. He reasons, as does the British doctor, that his patient needs his cash benefit to pay for his food when he is ill and cannot work; only the attending doctor knows whether his patient is in a condition of capacity or incapacity; ergo, naturally, the doctor must certify this condition. The Danish people are reputed to have a generous quota of moral responsibility in their make-up. The fact that neither the health insurance societies nor the health in­ surance physicians even feel the need of a medical referee corps indicates that the moral responsibility involved in the certification duty is not only shouldered but carried com­ fortably by the health insurance doctor. Naturally, with such a happily adjusted situation, the Danish doctors regarded the question of whether state medical officers could satisfactorily perform the certification function as a purely academic one. As such, they dismissed it, without exception, as did their fellow practitioners in Britain, as wholly unworkable. The only difference, indeed,

158

The Health Insurance Doctor

between the Danish response and the British response was that in Britain this conclusion was occasionally remarked with regret. Why the Profession Approves Its Health Insurance Arrangements The Danish medical profession, in expressing wholehearted satisfaction with health insurance, stresses the broad public health and social aspects of insurance practice and its happy effect upon the professional life of the doctors. They also admit, however, that its financial advantages to the doctors play a definite part in their approval of insurance practice, as it does in the comparable satisfaction of the British profes­ sion. Although Danish health insurance has been in opera­ tion for forty-five years, the doctors about fifteen years ago apparently had an object lesson in the superiority of medical incomes under health insurance, over private practice returns from comparable patients. As a result of a bitter controversy in Jutland over the scale of payment of medical health in­ surance practice on the expiration of the collective contract in this particular year, no renewal contract was sent to the Minister for approval. In consequence, the usual medical benefit was in abeyance for a year. Doctors were on "private practice" terms with the insured patients, who were entitled to reimbursement from their societies of from 50 to 75 per cent of the medical bills they paid. In consequence, to quote the exact words used by the dis­ tinguished practitioner, Dr. Johan Kuhn, of Copenhagen: "During these twelve months it was noticeable that the demands for medical service diminished perceptibly; and despite the fact that all the doctors hardened their hearts, going even so far as to collect their bills through bill collec­ tors, and despite the fact that also now they were free to name their own fees and that they no longer gave reduced rates to the insured, despite all this, this controversy (from

His Role in Denmark

159

which the doctors in other respects came out "on top") cost them about 1,500,00» kroner [$405,000] l"1 This meant an average loss that year of about 3,700 kroner —approximately $1,000 per health insurance doctor!2 At such a price the prerogatives of private practice might tend to lose their charm even were the general conditions of in­ surance practice deemed objectionable, which, of course, they were not in this case. On the contrary, the Danish prac­ titioners find health insurance practice most attractive from the highest professional standpoint. They have reached this conclusion with even more justification than their profes­ sional brethren in Britain because of the generous terms of the Danish medical benefit. Equipped with insurance ben­ efits, the doctor in Denmark can hospitalize his "unpropertied" patient and otherwise arrange his treatment largely as his professional judgment dictates, instead of always trimming it to what the patient can afford. The Danish doctors emphasize that this situation makes for a happy professional life. They also stress the point that the absence of money passing directly between insured patient and doctor brings improvement in the doctor-patient relationship. In­ deed, these practitioners found it hard, as their British colleagues did, to believe that one could suggest in good faith that the worker might love his doctor the more for being a "perambulating doctor bill." Apparently there has been a relatively recent conversion on the part of many Danish doctors to capitation as against the fee system of remuneration for insurance services. The 1 This incident was described by Dr. Kuhn personally in an interview with the author. He referred also to his public address in Paris in which he had related the facts. See pp. 13 ff. of an address delivered by Dr. Johan Kuhn, then Secretary of Danish Medical Society (now social and technical editor of the Danish Medical Journal) in Paris in 1927 at the occasion of organizing the International Bureau of Hygiene (League of Nations)—"La Pratique de l'Assurance—Maladie Facultative. Exemple du Danemark," par Dr. Johan Kuhn. 2 In exact figures $995. There were 680 doctors in Jutland, 407 of whom were in gen­ eral health insurance practice (estimated from Medicinalberetningfor den Oanske Stat, 1934, p. ι J7 and Statistisk Aarbog, 1934, p. 29).

16o

The Health Insurance Doctor

tradition of payment per unit of medical service rendered was a strong one in non-metropolitan Denmark, and at least until recently it has not been surrendered at all willingly. As expressed by the doctors who for years have helped to negotiate the collective contracts for the medical profession in Jutland and in Copenhagen,3 "Capitation is best for the doctor as for the society and its members. It gives the doctor certainty of income and improves his relation with his pa­ tients since the patient is not 'out of pocket' [through pay­ ment of 'control tickets'] when he drops in at the doctor's request. It promotes good work on the physician's part and induces care of the little things that lead to serious illness. But the practitioners for the most part do not come willingly to capitation in the first instance. Usually it is the case that the societies push it upon them and after they are obliged to have it, they learn its advantages." As in England, the points were stressed by medical men that capitation brought the insurance practitioner freedom from detailed record keeping for purposes of bill collecting, gave him an assured income, and, by eliminating the pos­ sibility of argument over items of medical service rendered, permitted him to practise his profession in peace and com­ fort.4 It is the opinion of both lay administrators and the doctors active in Danish Medical Association activities, that the trend away from Tariff II (fee system) to Tariff I (capita­ tion) will continue, and that for the medical profession's interests, as well as for those of the insured and the societies, should continue, until capitation is the basic system of re­ muneration in all parts of the kingdom. As has been previously remarked, the organized medical profession believes the restricted medical list in Copenhagen to be definitely desirable, while they insist upon free par3 Dr.

Hjalmer Fridericia in Aarhus, Dr. JoKan Kuhn in Copenhagen. For good statement of these often expressed views, pp. 10-12 of the address re­ ferred to in note 3 supra. 4

His Role in Denmark

161

ticipation at will of all doctors outside the Copenhagen area. They explain that their apparently inconsistent views can be reconciled. The attractions of a metropolitan life are such, they allege, that an undue number of medical men tend to congregate in the capital. They believe that without the check of an insurance list restricted to the number of doctors deemed adequate to meet the needs of the insured patients, serious overcrowding and competition, which would reduce average medical income to an undesirable level, inevitably would result. Free participation in insurance practice in the less populated areas, on the other hand, makes for a distribu­ tion of practitioners which is advantageous not only to the insured population but also to the average medical purse. While it is impossible to find a Danish doctor who objects to health insurance medical service, some practitioners, as might be expected, feel that the capitation amounts and the fees in the "fee schedules" might well be higher. There is, however, comparatively little of such sentiment. The general attitude of the profession is that on the whole they are quite reasonably paid, especially in relation to the circumstances of the insured population and in view of the substantial security and comfort of insurance practice. Proposed Extensions of Health Insurance Medical Service

Expansion of specialist service in the non-metropolitan areas is the improvement in health insurance "medical benefit" which is most discussed in Denmark. The National Health Service (Denmark's "Ministry of Health") has in view a program which is based upon a pre­ liminary development of central hospitals having stand­ ardized surgical and internal medicine specialists attached as staff. This part of the program was commenced in 1932 and is being pushed along rapidly. By the end of 1936 not only were Copenhagen, Aarhus, and a few of the other larger towns well supplied with hospitals staffed with physicians representing all the special fields of medicine and surgery,

102

The Health Insurance Doctor

but also in more than half of Denmark's twenty-four medical districts there was at least one fairly well equipped central hospital. Attached to these institutions as staff are physicians representative of the major special fields of surgery and in­ ternal medicine. It is planned that each district eventually shall have one such central hospital.5 It is also hoped in the future to improve rural facilities further by "planting" specialists in certain fields of broad demand, in unequipped areas, as part-time staff attached to the communal hospitals. Such staff would be given the priv­ ilege of using their hospital quarters for non-institutional private practice. It is assumed, also, that staff specialists once thus es­ tablished would contract with the Health Insurance Societies to give clinic and home treatment to the insured population, thereby adding insurance income to their salary from the hospital and to their fees from their practice among the wellto-do in the locality. It is believed that by such arrangement, specialists who tend to congregate in the cities could be distributed over the rural areas to their own satisfaction as well as to the ad­ vantage of the non-urban families. Whether or not this will be the exact procedure followed, Denmark's health service tradition and the long emphasized medical benefit of her health insurance system point to a steady improvement of the medical services which will be afforded her rural insured population. 6 Information furnished by Dr. Frandsen, Director of the National Health Service of Denmark.

P A R T III: F R A N C E

SUMMARY OF FRENCH HEALTH INSURANCE SCHEME HE French health insurance scheme went into opera­ tion in 1930 as a result of an omnibus measure enacted in 1928.1 This set up a compulsory system applicable to industry, commerce, and agriculture—not only of health insurance, but also of old-age and invalidity in­ surance and a limited form of survivors' insurance as well. The French coverage provisions followed the conventional pattern set by earlier compulsory laws in that in general only employees were covered. Homeworkers were classed as em­ ployees for purposes of the act, as were the sharecroppers (metayers) who comprise a large proportion of France's farming population. Selected groups, such as miners, seamen, railway workers, and civil service employees, for whom special legislation already had provided sickness protection, were omitted. Voluntary insurance was open to small shopkeepers, farmers, artisans, self-employed non-manual workers, etc., and other persons described as those dependent for a liveli­ hood principally upon their labor, provided their annual earnings did not exceed the limits set for the compulsory insurance. The main outlines of the compulsory scheme were as fol­ lows. The premium was divided between the worker and his employer and, as in most health insurance schemes, the em­ ployer was made the collecting agency responsible to the gov­ ernment for both shares. A government subsidy to vary in 1 Amended in 1929 and 1930. This law does not cover industrial injuries which had been provided for earlier in a Workmen's Compensation Act.

ι66

The Health Insurance Doctor

amount with the reduction in poor relief expenditures,as com­ pared with the five-year period just preceding institution of the social insurance scheme, was guaranteed. Moreover, the French Act, like the Danish (rather than the British measure) which covers all manual employees without reference to their earnings, provided that French workers otherwise subject to the act were excluded without exception from the compulsory provisions if their annual earnings ex­ ceeded certain limits. Both so-called "medical" and cash benefits were provided. The medical benefit, however, differed radically from the usual medical benefit, in that it constituted not actual med­ ical service and treatment but merely partial reimburse­ ment for or advance toward the worker's expenditures on medical, surgical, and hospital care and drugs. This was granted in case of illness of the dependent family as well as of the insured for a maximum period of six months from the date of the first medical consultation in respect of each ill­ ness. Through invalidity insurance, the same medical benefit rights were granted for the first five years during which an invalidity pension was drawn. Absolutely free choice of doc­ tor was granted, and it was stipulated that, on principle, the insured should always participate in medical benefit costs. His compulsory share was called the ticket moderateur2 and was intended as a primary check on abuse of medical benefit by the insured. Revised French Health Insurance Law The scheme was revised by a decret-loi3 in the fall of 1935. Agricultural workers are now provided for in a separate enactment. Voluntary insurance still is open to small farmers, sharecroppers, etc., in supplement to the compulsory in­ surance covering agricultural employees. 2

His actual share was far in excess of the ticket, see pp. 174 and 199^. A decret-loi is issued by the Premier, on the authorization of, and to be later ratified by parliament. 3

His Role in France

167

As in the original act, the measure relating to non-agricultural labor includes all wage earners in industry and com­ merce, whether manual workers or non-manual employees who are under sixty years of age and whose annual earnings are at least 1,500 francs ($99) but not in excess of specified maximum amounts.4 The specified maximum, as in Den­ mark, is supposed to correspond roughly to the full-time wage of a skilled worker and to vary with the locality and the family obligations of the insured. It ranges from 15,000 to 25,000 francs.6 Establishment of a money limit in the law itself, however, as is done both in Great Britain and also in France, inevitably creates difficulties with changes in money and price levels. Far preferable is the Danish method of periodic announcement of the insurance income limit by an administrative agency which is directed to vary the figures with the movement of the cost-of-living number. Tem­ porarily, because of nationwide high prices the French level has been placed by a special law at 21,000 francs ($1,386) for the insured without dependent children, and 25,000 francs ($1,500) for the insured with at least one dependent child, irrespective of the area in which the insured person works.6 In 1935 there were a little over 10,150,000 workers who, with their families, were entitled to health insurance bene­ fits. These ten million insured were distributed among about 750 health insurance funds. 4 However, the person drawing an old-age pension, even if under sixty years of age, is not subject to the insurance act, nor are school children who work part time or without salary for their own parents. s For French wage levels at date of original enactment, see pp. 52 and 53 of the 1919 Bulletin du Ministere du Travail. In cities other than Paris, workers in ornamental stone carving in 1929 drew the highest wage of 39 francs 31 centimes per day (or just under 12,000 francs per annum, counting 300 days); in the Parisian area, typographical and printing trades drew the highest pay of 54 francs 80 centimes per day (or about 17,100 francs per annum on a 300-day schedule). 6The law of August 29, 1936, Journal Officiel, 1936, pp. 9290, 9314 (Bulletin du Ministers du Travail, 1936, pp. 179-80) indicates that this limit is to be considered a temporary concession to the current low value of the franc and corresponding high level of prices, wages, etc. Francs are converted into dollars at the rate prevailing when the French survey was made—at 6.6 cents per franc.

ι68

The Health Insurance Doctor

Aliens, originally covered only after three months' work in France, now are insured on the same terms as workers of French nationality. The privilege of voluntary social insurance originally afforded to small shopkeepers, self-employed artisans, and professional workers of small means has been abolished. They must now obtain any desired non-commercial insurance through the mutualist fraternal organizations. Voluntary social insurance is now open only to the non-working wife of the insured. She receives medical benefits through the in­ surance of her husband and is allowed to insure herself in the regular insurance fund in which her husband is insured, for cash maternity, invalidity, and old-age benefits. For insur­ ance purposes she is rated on the basis of 1,500 francs a year, the minimum insurable salary. Benefits are payable only if she is wholly incapacitated for housework.7 The premiums or "contributions" are still divided equally between the employer and the worker. But whereas in the beginning the insured were classified into basic wage groups for contribution purposes, contributions (4 per cent from the worker, 4 per cent from his employer, covering sickness, maternity, old-age, and invalidity) now are based upon the actual wages received. Benefits of health insurance remain of the same two types, cash and medical. No basic change has been made, moreover, in the medical benefit system of providing merely a certain advance toward, or reimbursement of, the cost of medical and hospital care and drugs.8 The insured whose dis7

See Article 16, of the 1935 Act, Journal Officiel, 1935, pp. 11508\ff. The regions of France comprising Alsace-Lorraine retain the health insurance system which was effective during their many years of German affiliation. In this sys­ tem medical benefit follows the conventional pattern rather than that of the French Act. Medical services are guaranteed and are performed by such doctors as are willing to contract with the funds. Doctors are paid by the health insurance funds on a basis similar to that provided in Manchester until 1927, i.e. an annual capitation (51 francs per insured) is given the doctors collectively; they divide it among themselves according to the work performed. 8

His Role in France

169

ability results from deliberate misconduct still receives only medical benefit. The method used in determining both the insured's eligibility for health insurance benefits and the amount of cash benefit due him has been completely changed, although with approximately the same results as in the original act. Instead of requiring the worker to have made a certain num­ ber of contributions (sixty in the preceding quarter), the law now requires his aggregate contributions to constitute a certain amount. Exclusive of his employer's contribution, there must be credited to his account either 30 francs (¢1.98) from the previous two quarters or, failing that, 60 francs ($3.96) in the previous four quarters, in order that he may qualify for medical or cash benefit.9 The minimum and maximum daily cash benefits, except for a professedly temporary increase of the latter to 22 francs (¢1.45), remain at the same levels. The supplemental daily allowance granted for each child under sixteen is still one franc, a little more than the current price of a quart of milk. The only change that has been made has been to permit this allowance immediately on the birth of the child instead of at the end of the maternity benefit period of six weeks. The cash benefit ranges from 3 to 18 francs a week. In general it approximates the original "half pay," but now is computed according to a schedule based upon the aggregate amount of contributions standing to the worker's credit in the period of reference used. The earlier proviso that sickness days count for qualifying purposes as contribution days has been replaced by a new section which obligates the fund to place "complementary" contributions to the credit of the insured person whose illness lasts over a month. There is a similar requirement of com9 This has caused such confusion and argument, that many funds in furnishing their members with informative circulars on the new law avoid the necessity of explaining this point by doubling the required amount, i.e. by using 60 francs in lieu of 30 francs, etc.

The Health Insurance Doctor

plementary contributions as part of maternity benefit to the insured woman. Thus health insurance rights are main­ tained during disability, just as they were under the old system when compensated sickness days counted as "con­ tribution" days for qualifying purposes. These lump-sum complementary contributions are not only used for computing sick benefit rights, but also serve to keep up the worker's old-age insurance rights, taking the place of the half-rate contributions which were formerly required. No change has been made in the provisions governing the cash benefit on hospitalization of the insured. He still re­ ceives only one-fourth of the usual benefit if he has no de­ pendents, one-half if he has a wife but no children (or aged dependent), and two-thirds if he has both a wife and child (or aged dependent). The waiting period of the original act has been retained. The protection to insurance rights during unemployment periods has undergone a change in computation technique to make it compatible with the new qualifying and benefit pro­ visions, but the unemployment protection provided is prac­ tically the same as before. An improvement has been made in the situation of the worker who suffers an interruption of work through industrial injury. His employer (or, if insured, the latter's insurance company), in all industrial injury cases causing incapacity of more than a month, must from then on make a flat com­ plementary contribution to the worker's social insurance account of twelve francs (79 cents) a month, i.e. 36 francs ($2.38) a quarter. This keeps up his old-age and invalidity insurance and safeguards his health insurance rights in case of illness immediately following his industrial injury period. Previously, if he fell ill after a non-contribution period be­ cause of industrial injury, he was unable to qualify for bene­ fit unless he had voluntarily contributed from his own pocket.

His Role in France

171

Another liberalizing modification has been made in respect to industrial injury cases. Where formerly the law flatly stated that no health insurance benefits were payable in case of industrial injury, now the health insurance fund must grant benefits to the injured worker whose employer refuses to acknowledge the industrial character of the injury. The worker is required, however, to file suit to enforce his right under the Workmen's Compensation Act, and the health insurance fund is subrogated to the worker's rights in this suit to the extent of the benefits it pays out on account of the industrial injury.10 For administration of health insurance, France is now di­ vided into regions instead of departments. All the funds in a region are joined in a union of funds, which serves among other things as a primary reinsurance fund for its members. Behind these unions stands a Central Guarantee Fund. Mutual Aid Societies, when approved as official insurance funds (caisses), still administer both the cash and medical benefits, and supplementary departmental insurance funds are also provided for, to conduct the insurance of persons entitled to insurance who have failed to join an approved society. Each health insurance fund affiliates itself with an invalidity insurance fund. The worker chooses his health insurance fund only. In summary, it may be said that most of the changes made since initiation of France's Health Insurance Act have been directed at giving the funds clear authority to require compliance with their regulations on pain of loss of benefit, and at the simplification of accounts, bookkeeping, and administration. All the substituted contribution and benefit 10 In case of non-industrial accidents caused by negligence of a third party and giving rise to a right to sue for damages, insurance benefits are payable, but the fund is sub­ rogated to the worker's rights, to the extent of benefits paid. No compromise of the claim against the third party is good against the fund unless the fund has had fifteen days' notice by registered mail. The worker (but not the fund to the extent of its interest) loses his right to sue unless he notifies the third party that he is insured and names his fund.

172

The Health Insurance Doctor

provisions of the 1935 revisory act were intended to approx­ imate those put into operation in 1930 but with a simpler computation technique. There seems to be no movement of strength to exchange the medical benefit arrangements adopted in the original social insurance act for the conven­ tional social insurance medical benefit which guarantees the actual medical services themselves to the insured families.

HEALTH INSURANCE MEDICAL BENEFIT

M

EDICAL benefit," reads Article VI of the French Health Insurance Law, "covers the expenses of general and specialist medical care, the expenses of medicines, drugs, and medical and surgical appliances (in­ cluding essential artificial dentures), hospitalization costs, the cost of treatment in sanatoria, and transportation as well as the cost of surgical operations necessary for the insured, his spouse,1 and the children dependent upon either of them." This rather ambitious provision is radically limited by subsequent paragraphs of the section. The upshot of these modifications is that only a varying fraction of the listed costs of illness is covered by the insurance. The terms and conditions which control the size of this fraction and the procedure for obtaining it are traceable directly to the organized medical profession of France. The original French Health Insurance Bill provided the conven­ tional health insurance medical benefit, i.e. it guaranteed the medical services themselves. This was defeated through the efforts of the French Medical Association, which introduced the substitute bill which was enacted into law.2 The terms and conditions of French medical benefit were designed to maintain the following principles, which, the Medical Asso­ ciation maintains, comprise the French "Medical Charter": 1

A spouse who is also a wage earner, if earning more than the limits set for com­ pulsory health insurance, has no right to medical benefit. 2 See Antonelli, Le Droit des Assurances Societies, Tome I, pp. 6-7, 30th lesson, for a full account. Also, cf. Article 4,1928 Act, with Article 4, Amendatory Act of 1930.

174

The Health Insurance Doctor

1. Absolutely free choice of doctor. 2. Payment of the doctor in an amount determined be­ tween the individual doctor and patient. 3. Payment according to unit of service rendered. 4. Payment of the doctor directly by the patient. 5. Preservation by the doctor of complete secrecy with re­ gard to his professional knowledge of his patient's con­ dition as "privileged" information which the doctor will never communicate. Thus the doctor who treats an insured patient in France does not receive remuneration either from the insurance organizations, as does the insurance doctor in Denmark,3 or from the governmental authorities as does the health in­ surance doctor in Britain. He serves his insured patient as he always has done on the terms which he deems acceptable. His patient, through his medical benefit, then receives from his insurance fund a fraction of the doctor's bill; this benefit is given to him when he furnishes his fund with an appro­ priate slip signed by the doctor. The portion of the physician's bill which is met or "reimbursed" by the insurance fund is not even a definite proportion of such bill.4 It is merely 80 per cent5 of the amount set in the fund's tarif de responsabilite as the appropriate fee for the type of medical service rendered. The tarif is a schedule (20 per cent, termed the ticket moderateur or controlling ticket, is not reimbursed) which lists the various types of medical and surgical services and values each for reimbursement purposes at a certain number of francs. The doctor uses mere symbols in the insurance slip which he signs for the insured. These symbols indicate that the service he performs falls into a certain price category of 3 See pp. 207-8 and for illustrations of some voluntary arrangements in con­ travention of this general situation. 4 The original provisions of the "doctor's bill" stipulated that the fund should pay 80 per cent of the medical expenses evaluated at the usual prices charged in the neighbor­ hood. This was amended before the act went into effect, to provide the present scheme. 5 Originally it was 85 per cent for the lowest paid workers.

His Role in France

175

the tariff but do not reveal the nature of the actual medical service itself nor the nature of the ailment of the patient. On pain of forfeiting the right to assistance from the Central Guarantee Fund in case of deficit, the fund's tarif amounts must not exceed the maximum limits of the tarif de reassurance set by the Ministry of Labor. This latter reinsurance schedule is set by the Minister of Labor after consultation with his Advisory Administrative Social In­ surance Council (Le Conseil Superieur des Assurances Sociales1) and taking account of the Minimum Fee Schedule of the French Medical Association.8 The Social Insurance Council is a large unwieldy body with a membership repre­ senting each of the interested ministries, both houses of par­ liament, the representatives of each type of insurance fund, and each of the professional and technical groups: phar­ macy, medicine, midwives, dentists. Its actual technical work is performed by a permanent section chosen from its membership by the Council at large and functioning chiefly through three subsections into which it is divided: (1) Financial, (2) Administrative and Judicial, (3) MedicoPharmaceutical. The tarifs of the individual funds are established in the first instance by the funds and incorporated, together with regulations about presentation of claims for medical benefit, in collective agreements between the funds and the medical associations in the different regions. The tarifs seldom greatly exceed the reinsurance schedule's rates and, since they must be approved by the social insurance authorities to be effective, they are not much lower than this schedule, ex6 See

pp. 199^. for further discussion of this tarif. This body is hard to classify. To use the words of an authoritative commentator, Etienne Antonelli, professor of law and specialist in labor law, "It is a little more than an advisory body and a little less than an autonomous body 'acting of its own initia­ tive,' " Le Droit des Assurances Sociales, Tome II, p. 212. 8 Similarly, the minimum fees of the other technicians, pharmacists, dentists, nurses, etc., are to be consulted in setting tarif rates for their services. In this discussion, when the term Medical Association is placed in capital letters, it refers to the national or­ ganization. When otherwise, a local association is meant. 7

176

The Health Insurance Doctor

cept when the fund's financial situation is so weak as to neces­ sitate approval of such rates. Medical interests, of course, press toward high rates. There must be approval of each tarif by the regional social insurance commission or, failing such approval, by the permanent section of the Social Insurance Council to which the funds may appeal against regional re­ fusal. The representative of the Ministry of Labor who sits with the regional authorities, may appeal against an ap­ proval by the latter which he deems unjustified. The re­ gional social insurance commission includes representatives in equal proportions, (1) of the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Health, (2) of the funds, and (3) of the doctors and other technicians. The reinsurance schedule since 1934 has divided the regions of France into three divisions, according to their population and degree of industrialization. Division A in­ cludes cities with more than 500,000 population and such highly industrialized areas as the Seine and the Rhone. In Division B are the cities which are not in Division A and yet have a population of more than 100,000. All other regions are classified as Division C. The basic office-consultation rate in this schedule is supposed to approximate one-half the average daily wage of skilled labor. This is roughly the case, except for the Paris region where it is equivalent only to half the average daily wage paid semiskilled workers. The 1936 reinsurance tarif fees were as follows:9 OrFiCE CONSULTATIONS (cited as C)

Division A Division B Division C

18 francs ($1.19) 15 francs (99 cents) 12 francs (79 cents)

HOUSE CALLS (cited as V) office-consultation rate plus mile­

age. MILEAGE—(1) a flat rate of 2 francs in cities (including their suburbs) of 100,000 or more; (2) in regions other than (1), 75 centimes per kilometer (a little less than a mile) in non9 Rates

were advanced at end of 1938. See note 23 infra.

His Role in France

177

mountainous regions; 1.25 francs in more mountainous regions (minimum 2 francs). SUNDAY CONSULTATIONS AND HOUSE CALLS—add 30 per cent to the rates above. NIGHT CONSULTATIONS AND HOUSE CALLS—add 100 per cent to the rates above.

When more than a mere consultation is involved, the general practitioner's services are designated in terms of multiples of the basic consultation C and rated accordingly. Thus, for example, in the present reinsurance tarij in Di­ vision A (metropolitan area) C = 18 francs, and the follow­ ing rates apply: Nature of Service Inoculationwithapreventiveserum Dressing a serious injury Hernia reduction Lumbar puncture Giving a general anesthetic

Reimbursement Value C 1.2 = 21.6 francs C2 = 36 francs C3 = 54 francs C4 = 72 francs C6 = 108 francs

($1.43) ($2.38) ($3.56) ($4-75) ($7.13)

Official lists of general practitioner services and of those deemed surgeons' and specialists' services have been com­ piled in collaboration with the Medical Association and promulgated by the Ministry of Labor. The latter two types of services are designated in the tarifs in terms of K and a digit by which it is multiplied. The symbol K signifies in all regions in respect of services to a non-hospitalized patient, reimbursement at the rate of 8 francs when the digit is less than 40, 15 francs when it is 40 or more. For instance: Nature of Service Removal of tonsils and adenoids Hernia operation Removal of appendix

Reimbursement Value K 20 = 160 francs ($10.56) K 40 = 600 francs ($39.60) K 60 = 900 francs ($59.40)

As previously stated, agreements between the funds and the medical associations must be approved by the regional social security authorities or, on appeal, by the Social In­ surance Council. If no collective contract is agreed to, the fund, in lieu of reimbursement in accordance with the usual

178

The Health Insurance Doctor

schedule, may pay the insured a small flat-rate lump sum10 (fixed in a special tarij) for all medical services, regardless of their nature. The latter situation is most exceptional, as it is disadvantageous to the doctor as well as to the insured, in that the smaller reimbursement rights of the insured press him to cut down on medical care. In view of this effect on medical practice, doctors see to it that collective contracts are made, except when this is impossible, i.e. when there is no "certified" medical association in the region. Certified means properly representative of the doctors practising in the locality. To achieve this status, a local medical group must first seek recognition by the National Medical Associa­ tion as a representative local group and then be approved by the Social Insurance Council. If a local group fails to ob­ tain the approval of the national professional group, it may appeal to the medical-pharmaceutical section of the Social Insurance Council, which, it will be remembered, is one of its three main subsections. This subsection includes at least two physicians and one pharmacist. If it agrees with the National Medical Association that the petitioning local medical group is not representative, the matter is ended. If, however, the subsection believes the local group has a legitimate claim, certification may be granted by the Social Insurance Council despite the National Medical Associa­ tion's opposition. The right to reimbursement toward medical bills extends to bills paid to any medical man authorized to practise in France. There is absolutely free choice of doctor. Not even the medical association itself in collective agreement with the funds may intrude on this principle.11 10

See Article 37, sec. 9, of the 1935 Act. original executive decree of 1929 setting up the administrative regulations for social insurance purported to limit this choice of physicians within the locality. Article 32, Decret de 5 Avril, "Journal Officiel, 1929, p. 3,974. This decree never was put into legal operation and the limiting provision was omitted from the 1930 decree which set up the rules actually used when the act began to function. Article 18 of the Decret de 25 Juillet 1930, Journal Officiel, 1930, p. 8,453. 11 The

His Role in France

179

Thus in a case litigated to the French Supreme Court, it was held that a proviso in the collective agreement between the doctors and the funds that only bills from doctors domiciled in France would be honored for medical benefit was violative of the free choice guarantee. The patient was allowed reimbursement on a bill for medical services rendered in Geneva, the court suggesting that had the fund alleged the impossibility under the circumstances of control of the patient to check fraud, the decision might have been other­ wise.12 In deference also to "free choice," the decree setting up the official administrative regulations13 provides that the insured may get reimbursement (although only on the flatrate forfait basis which is used in the absence of collective agreement) by presenting receipted medical bills, even when his doctor is unwilling to abide by the collective agreement between the funds and the medical association. Such refusal apparently occurs very seldom and is related to the doctor's desire to avoid subjecting himself to the medical association's disciplinary machinery. All collective contracts provide that the doctors agree to submit to such disciplinary procedure, and governmental Official Regulations14 state that a doctor, even when not a member of the medical association, is deemed to have agreed to the terms of the collective agree­ ment when he signs insurance slips to enable his insured patients to get reimbursement benefits. The purely private practice relationship of doctor and patient as to the amount of medical charges, i.e. that the size of the bill is set in each instance by the doctor, has also been construed by the central administrative body to be guaran­ teed by the Iibre cboix (free choice) of the French act, even as 12 Caisse Primaire OSpartementale des Assurances Sociales de la Haute-Savoie contre Dame Perrissin, Dalloz, Kec. Heb., 1934, p. 284. 13 Decret du 19 Mars 1936 (Journal Officiel, 1936, p. 3,233, or see Bulletin du Ministere du Travail, 1936, p. *33). General Administration of Social Insurance, Article 10, sec. 2. For discussion of disciplinary control see pp. 215^. 14 ibid., Article 10, sec. 1.

18o

The Health Insurance Ooctor

against collective medical action. Thus the provisions in two collective agreements between the funds in two departments and the corresponding medical associations, to the effect that all doctors practising among insured families would charge "not less than" (in one agreement) and "not more than" (in the other agreement) the minimum fees of the medical association's schedule, were denied approval by the Social Insurance Council as violating the spirit of "free choice."15 The drug benefit which is included in French medical benefit gives the insured family partial reimbursement for drugs, appliances and therapeutic supplies. For medicines proper, a fraction of the actual cost and not of a tarij amount is granted. Their cost, however, is regulated by collective agreements between the funds and the pharmacist's associa­ tions. Within medical benefit, however, i.e. if reimburse­ ment is expected, the attending physician is no longer per­ mitted absolutely free exercise of his discretion in prescribing for his insured patient, as he was in the original act. There is now reimbursement of only one prescription for each medical consultation. The physician, moreover, is specifically en­ joined in the revised act that he has "the liberty of prescrib­ ing only according to the most strict economy consistent with proper treatment" of his patient's condition. Reim­ bursement allowed on the cost of prescriptions is 80 per cent of the prescriptions which do not involve over twenty-five francs ($1.65) and 60 per cent of those of higher cost.16 Even with the higher priced prescriptions, however, 80 per cent reimbursement is permitted on specified serums17 and, with the approval of the Medical Superintendent of the super­ visory Controle Medical of the fund, in cases of any disease necessitating very expensive drugs. 15 Agreements made in Finistere and in Belfort. Antonelli, op. cit., Part IV, Chap. n> sec. 1. 16 Originally a straight 85 per cent of the cost was reimbursed. 17 Serums having an organic base and regulated by the law of June 14, 1934.

His Role in France

181

Both the original and revised acts authorize the Minister of Labor, on recommendation of his Social Insurance Council, to set special reinsurance schedule limits for reimbursement of proprietary or patent medicines. So far this privilege has not been exercised, although commissions have been formed at two different times (the last in 1937) to draw up such a schedule. Great caution in the use of proprietary medica­ ments is constantly urged by the medical journals of the organized profession—in the hope that voluntary restraint will forestall limitations on free prescribing by the doctor.18 For medical and surgical appliances and supplies, the fund sets a schedule,19 with 80 per cent reimbursement as in the case of medical fees, and, on authorization of the attending doctor, the cost of auxiliary services such as may be rendered by a nurse or a masseur also will be reimbursed at specified schedule rates. The French act always has been ambiguous in respect to the choice of hospital permitted the insured. It is clear that any public hospital, and also such private hospitals as have contracts with the fund, may be entered. It is not clear whether care in other institutions is within medical benefit. Reference to official regulations, however, makes certain at least what the administrative authorities contemplate. Until the middle of 1936, reimbursement toward the cost of institutional care was permitted by administrative regula­ tions only when the insured patient entered either a public hospital or a private hospital with which his fund had con­ tracted. If the insured wanted to be institutionalized else­ where, he received reimbursement only for the medical or 18 The Minister is now also empowered to put a financial limit on the drug benefit payable per each feuille de maladie (insurance record slip). 19 Except for such ordinary supplies as cotton, gauze, adhesive tape, etc., unless a physician is licensed as a dispensing doctor, in furnishing medicaments or surgical sup­ plies and appliances, he is guilty of unlawful practice of pharmacy. In practice, how­ ever, all physicians keep on hand medicated bandages, iodine, etc., to use in their prac­ tice. The doctor then gives his insured patient a prescription order for the amounts used. The latter fills the order and gives the materials to the doctor to replenish his supply.

182

The Health Insurance Doctor

surgical fees involved. Present regulations, however, provide that the insured may enter any institution "which accepts the contrdle rules of his fund," i.e. which agrees to comply with the administrative rules which are directed at super­ visory control of the insured person who claims benefits. This would include, of course, even commercial institu­ tions; however, as the cost of a bed in a commercial private hospital or "nursing home" (maison de sante), plus medical fees charged, is far beyond that of a hospital proper, this change has no great practical importance. The insured is not likely to wish to enter such an institution. In recognition of this fact, the organized medical profession, so far without success, have been driving for a more liberal reimbursement for "nursing homes" as essential to the "free choice" prin­ ciple.20 For institutionalized cases the reimbursement arrange­ ments include two elements, one allocated to hospitalization itself, the other to medical and allied services of the staff other than the salaried nurses. The bed-day tarij rate signifies the actual amount payable by the fund to the institution toward the cost of the bed to the insured person. The patient pays no ticket moderateur (i.e. the usual 20 per cent share). The re­ insurance schedule sets an individualized rate for each hos­ pital, which is a percentage (in 1936, 70 per cent)21 of the amount payable by the Medical Assistance authorities for their cases. The schedules of the individual funds vary these rates by special contracts with the various hospitals. As in the case of medical care, what the insured person shall ac­ tually be charged for hospitalization is, of course, not reg­ ulated by the health insurance measure. The contracts made by the funds with the various hospitals, however, stipulate what the insured shall be charged by the institution as well as the reimbursement rate to which the fund agrees. 20 For reference to this situation in the official medical journal, see Le Midecin de France, April 1937, pp. 334-6. 21 Raised to 80 per cent in 1937.

His Role in France

183

In Paris all hospitalization of insured families is handled by the Public Assistance authorities acting under one central agreement with the health insurance funds of the area. The per diem cost of a bed in many of the hospitals is more than double that of the tarij amount contributed by the fund, leaving a heavy burden upon the insured. This in turn means a burden upon the Public Assistance authorities, which must provide for the insured who are unable to pay their com­ plementary share. Rural hospital bed-rates on the whole are far below those of metropolitan institutions, and institutional care is in con­ sequence more completely an insurance benefit in the nonurbanized areas than it is in the cities. This is illustrated by the table below, which reproduces the contribution (tarij) rates offered by a well run rural deMedical Bed Name of Hospital

Coullomiers Sagny Melun Montereau Moret Brie-Compte-Robert La Ferte Gaucher

Surgical Bed

Daily rate charged the insured

Tarif

Tarif

rate paid by the funds

rate which would have been payable by fund in absence of contract (reinsur­ ance rate)

francs

francs

francs

¢3.69 20

20

23 21.76

20

18.65 18.10 13.29

Daily rate charged the insured

Tarif

Tarif

rate paid by the funds

rate which would have been payable by fund in absence of contract (reinsur­ ance rate)

francs

francs

francs 16.81

15-79 13-87 15-63

25

24

22.41 26

22

14-93

24

20

14.50

18

12-43 ια.06

24.23 18.66

24 18

17.36 16.15

18.94

16

12.62

14.94

14

9.96

20

13 13

8.86

12-43

184

The Health Insurance Doctor

partmental fund (Caisse Departementale de Seine et Marne) for hospitals with which it has made contracts. These rates are substantially in excess of those of the reinsurance schedule and in most cases approximate the actual cost of hospitalization to the insured. As stated above,in addition to a bed-day rate, the hospitali­ zation reinsurance schedule sets rates payable for medical ser­ vices rendered by the hospital staff. These medical honoraria are reimbursed like ordinary medical bills as to 80 per cent only of the tarij rate, a 20 per cent ticket moderateur being left to the insured. The reinsurance schedule rate for these honoraria is a straight nominal Jorjait of 4 francs a day for both medical and surgical cases in all public hospitals in medical teaching centers. In contracting with other institu­ tions, while the same rate is set for medical cases, the fund is permitted a choice of two rate procedures for surgical cases. Either the usual forfait of 4 francs a day or a specified lump sum for the operation (including twenty days aftercare) may be elected. The lump sum is to be computed by referring to the symbol rating of the operation in the tarif or the medical association's fee schedule,22 using 3 francs as the equivalent of K if the coefficient is not more than twenty-four, and 6 francs as the equivalent of K when the coefficient is twentyfive or more.23 To illustrate, an appendicitis operation is K 60 in the surgical tarif. The lump-sum honorarium for such an opera­ tion in a hospitalized case involving a twenty-day stay is, therefore, 6 χ 60 = 360 francs. If complications set in, and the patient spends another two weeks in the institution, 4 francs a day is added to the honorarium, totalling for the entire case 416 francs. The daily forfait basis produces much lower honoraria. A twenty-day appendicitis case calls for only 80 francs, and an The same symbols are used in both, In December 1938, all rates advanced. These became 3 fr. 50 and 7 fr. 50 respec­ tively. See JournalOfficiel,1938, pp. iiyyiff. 22

23

His Role in France

185

operation entailing thirty-four days' hospitalization calls for an honorarium of only 136 francs, or about 33 per cent of the lump-sum tarif rate. All medical honoraria are paid directly to the hospital, which distributes them among the staff physicians in ac­ cordance with the hospital's rules.24 Thus in case of hos­ pital doctors, the French Medical Charter's principles of payment according to "direct contract" between doctor and patient and payment "directly to the doctor" have been abandoned. Honoraria (in addition to hospital charges) for medical services rendered by the staffs of public hospitals and philanthropic private institutions are recent developments in France, as in the "voluntary" hospitals in Britain. Tradi­ tionally, hospital care in France included medical and sur­ gical services, and staffs of these hospitals, as in the "vol­ untary" institutions in Britain, were either wholly unpaid or in receipt of nominal honoraria from the institution. The smallness of the forfaits demanded in respect of insured pa­ tients for the services of such hospital staffs is understand­ able in the light of the history of these institutions. It seems recognized that a large fraction of the socially insured population would be hospitalized through the Public Assistance authorities were it not for social insurance, and it appears to be generally accepted in medical circles that rela­ tively little can be expected to be paid the hospital staffs on the hospitalization of such insured patients. It is contended by the medical associations, however, that there is a substantial 24 The medical honoraria for health insurance cases in Paris hospitals are divided in accordance with the rules made by representatives of the medical staffs, in the propor­ tions agreed upon annually. In the 1935 report the proportions were as follows: Regular staff consultants 46 per cent Assistants in charge of laboratories, etc. 15 " " Internes 13 " " Studentnurses 11 " " Midwives 10 " " Medical student assistants (other than internes) 5 " " See "L'Application des Assurances Sociales dans Ies Hopi taux," Administration Ginerale de ΐAssistance Publique a Paris (1933), P- 3·

ι86

The Health Insurance Doctor

better-incomed fraction of the insured who are proper poten­ tial clients of the private commercial hospitals. The doctors maintain that such persons should be encouraged to choose their surgeons freely and that, in justice to the members of this group, there should be a much more generous reimburse­ ment tarij for medical and surgical services in a private maison de sante {pursing home) than for those rendered in public hospitals.25 Procedure Required in Obtaining Benefits Since the 1935 revision of the Social Insurance Act, right to all medical benefit has been absolutely dependent upon conformance with requirements designed to promote effec­ tive supervision by the fund and to check fraudulent im­ position, i.e. to strengthen contrdle medical. On pain of loss of all benefit, both cash and medical, the first medical con­ sultation must be reported to the fund within three days. There are exceptions from this harsh rule, for unavoidable non-compliance. A sickness io\d&c,feuille de maladie, must be obtained by the insured in order that he may receive either his cash or medical benefits. This jeuille or insurance record slip is a printed form which (1) contains space for the data about the insured's conditions which are required for establishing his rights, and (2) also gives full instructions about his rights and the steps which he must take to obtain them.26 Either a de25 The suggestion was made to a special study commission (representatives appointed by the medical federation and by the funds) by its medical members, that the symbol K should be valued at 18 francs for operations performed in maisons de santi (instead of 3 and 6 as in the hospital tarif). Even this suggestion was objected to by some physicians as "strangling" direct arrangements between doctor and patient. (See Le MSdeein de France, April 1937, pp. 335-6.) In the minimum fee schedule of the medical association of the Seine, K equals 20 francs. 26 The latter is required by Article 113 of the DScret de Riglement d'Administration pursuant to a section in the revised act, which resulted from a decision of the French Supreme Court holding that a woman could not be denied nursing benefits on the ground that she failed to ObserverIhe regulations set up unless she had been personally notified of the rules. "V Affaire Epoux Hardy" Cour de Cassation Civile, Dalloz, Rec. Heb. 1935, Sommaire, p. 5.

His Role in France

187

tachable "notification of illness" card is annexed or a sep­ arate one enclosed. This notification card, which must be mailed to the insured's fund, carries the postal franking privilege, a privilege granted all social insurance communica­ tions sent to or by a fund. As in all health insurance schemes, cash benefit is payable only on medical certification by the attending physician, and reimbursement of medical bills depends on medical attesting of the bill's character. (Cash benefits are reduced on hospitalization, in accordance with a sliding scale which varies with family responsibilities.27) The first feuille is good only for a maximum of eight days. If illness continues, a second record slip must be obtained or benefits will be forfeited. This, too, serves only for an eightday period, each subsequent record slip being effective for fifteen days. As previously stated, the doctor fills in the data necessary for the insured's reimbursement rights, in symbols which preserve complete secrecy as to the nature of the doctor's actual services and the patient's ailment. (The same symbols are used in both the medical association's fee schedule and in the fund's schedule for the same service.) The symbol used by the doctor when reporting on a case may mean any one of many services valued in the schedule at the same rate. For example, in the tarif of Paris and its environs, C 1.6 means any one of the following services:28 1. Taking a specimen of blood for laboratory ex­ amination. 2. Giving a single intravenous hypodermic treat­ ment (involving anything but arsenobenzine). 3. Single antitetanus inoculation plus a simple dressing of a minor wound or cut. 4. An average dressing or bandaging case. 5. Subcutaneous hypodermic treatment. 6. Arsenobenzine inoculation when one of a series. 27

See p. 170 supra for details. Book of the Medical Association of the Seine, 1935, p. 78.

28 Year

ι88

The Health Insurance Doctor

7. Curative (not preventive) serum inoculation. 8. Taking more than three stitches—or less than three stitches if linen or horsehair is used. 9. Removal of foreign substance from the body (if an easy and uncomplicated case). 10. Dressing the antrum. 11. Lancing a boil (with or without injecting novocaine). ία. Removal of a surface abscess or tumor. Ordinarily the fund expects the insured to pay his doctor bill and then apply for the amount of reimbursement allowed by the schedule. However, regulations permit an advance of this amount in lieu of reimbursement when the worker makes the appropriate application proving his need of such an arrangement. The advance is made for only one item at a time. No further advance is made except on proof that the amount has been paid to the doctor. When this is established, the fund will give an advance toward the next instalment on the bill. When asking for reimbursements (as for other health in­ surance benefits), the insured is supposed to produce his receipts for contributions paid in the qualifying reference period. The employer, on paying the contributions, gets a receipt in duplicate. One set he is obligated to furnish to his worker at least every three months. If the insured is unable to furnish the regular receipts but can produce an official labor record book kept by his employer, showing wages earned and deductions made for social insurance contribu­ tions, his benefits are granted on this evidence.29 If the worker falls ill when he is away from home, he can obtain his health insurance benefits through an affiliated fund. Such affiliations are required in every region, and full 29 If the fund, under such circumstances, finds on checking the records that the con­ tributions indicated by the labor record book have not in fact been made, it can pursue the employer in question for benefits unjustifiably paid.

His Role in France

189

information on affiliations can be obtained by the insured from the local departmental fund. The insured patient is legally obliged, as under the British and Danish schemes, to seek his medical care at the doctor's office if his physical condition permits. According to regula­ tions contained in or based upon the administrative decret, the insured must obey his physician's orders, particularly with respect to staying in bed, refraining from exercise, etc. He must abide by the regulations of his fund, which to be effective require approval of the Ministry of Labor. (All such regulations are binding upon him only when he has been notified of their content.30) For disobedience the funds provide penalties of 10 per cent to 25 per cent reduction of benefit, punishment contemplated by the administrative authorities and provided for in one of the clauses of the "Model Rules" promulgated by the Ministry. Since the 1936 regulatory decret, the insured has been re­ quired to get an authorization or "acceptance of respon­ sibility" from his fund when he wishes a consultation of doctors, the services of a specialist, a surgical operation, or auxiliary treatment such as massage or medicinal baths.31 If the insured person goes to a specialist for services listed as suitable for performance by a general practitioner, re­ imbursement is merely at the general practitioner rating. When a house call entails treatment of several patients who are members of one insured person's family, reimbursement is on the basis of a house call for only one, and on an office consultation basis for the other patients treated. The insured is required, on pain of loss of benefit (both medical and cash) to permit full controle medical, i.e. inves­ tigation of his condition, through personal interview and "> This rule was incorporated in the act itself (Article 31, sec. 4, Journal Oficiel1 P- H)6°2) because of the decision of the Cour de Cassation (the French Supreme Court) referred to in note 26, that violation of administrative rules could not result in penalty unless the rules were brought to the personal attention of the insured. Ergo funds provide such notification on the insurance record slips (feuilles de maladie). 81 The insured gets written notification of this rule on his first jeullle de maladie. T 93i>

190

The Health Insurance Doctor

medical examination by the supervisory administrative staff of his fund.32 If his condition permits, he must come to the fund's headquarters for this investigation. If it does not, he must receive the fund's inspector, be it doctor, nurse, or lay visitor, at his home. He may have his own physician present at a controle examination. All disputes between the insured person and the fund over the state of his health and his con­ sequent right to benefits go for first and final settlement to a technical commission of three, composed of the insured's doctor, a doctor representing the fund's controle medical, and a third physician appointed by the presiding justice of the trial court. One purely preventive medical benefit is frequently given, i.e. the right to reimbursement for a complete medical checkover every five years. This, the law specifically states,33 may be made the privilege of both the worker and his spouse and the children in his charge, "whether sick or well." It is not, however, required. Dental Benefit Reimbursement toward the cost of general dental care is given in accordance with established fee schedules which, as with other tarifs, usually corresponds in general to the central reinsurance schedule. A special dental feuille must be ob­ tained from the fund and filled out by the dentist. As in Denmark, health insurance in France is promoting longoverdue care of the teeth of the general population. Some of the departmental and large mutualist funds now employ their own staff of dentists and have thoroughly modern equipment. Contribution toward the cost of artificial dentures is pro­ vided only under two circumstances: (1) absolute necessity on health grounds, (2) necessity on personal-appearance 32 For

full discussion, see pp. n\jf. original act made this a required benefit, but for the worker exclusively. The 1935 revisory act made it optional with the fund and included the family as possible beneficiaries. 33 The

His Role in France

191

grounds because of the occupation of the worker. For the resolution of arguments over this benefit, a special commis­ sion of three must be set up within five days of application by the insured. The commission comprises one representa­ tive of the fund in question, one doctor appointed by the local medical association (or associations34) with which the fund has contracted, and a dental surgeon appointed by the asso­ ciation of dental surgeons with which the fund has con­ tracted. If contracts have not been made with either the medical or dental associations, the presiding officer of the local civil court makes the appointment. The commission's decisions are final and must be handed down within twenty days. Maternity Benefit As in both Denmark and Britain, pregnancy and child­ birth are specially provided for in the French health in­ surance scheme. Cash benefits for a three-month period (six weeks before and six weeks after confinement) are granted the insured woman, on condition that she cease remunerative work during the compensated period. These "indemnities of repose" are in the amount of the regular cash sick benefits. A woman who is insured in her own right is also entitled to a cash nursing benefit if she nurses her infant. This must be at least 175 francs ($11.55) a month for a period of four months, and the maximum which the fund may provide is 8 50 francs ($>56.10). If the woman is not able to nurse her child (medical certification of this fact is required), she may obtain "milk bonuses," which are 50 to 60 per cent of the nursing benefit amount. A reimbursement grant for the cost of medical services and drugs needed during confinement is made in the case of both an insured woman and the wife of an insured man. Originally, i.e. from the inception of the act in July 1930 until 1936, re­ imbursement of medical bills for obstetrical services was on 34 In some regions the specialists and the surgeons have their own separate organiza­ tions.

192

The Health Insurance Doctor

the same basis as reimbursement of bills incurred for illness, i.e. 80 per cent of a tarif amount. As a result, however, of the revision enacted in the fall of 1935, the participation of the insured in the tarij amount, i.e. the ticket moderateur, has been abolished. The fund now sets an inclusive lump sum (forfait), which is paid for the medical and pharmaceutical expenses of the entire case.36 This includes delivery of the child and normally required subsequent medical attention, whether delivery is made at home or at the hospital. This is payable, however, only upon condition that the applicant (1) reports to her fund the fact of her pregnancy (established by either a doctor or a midwife) at least four months before the anticipated date of confinement, and (2) complies with her fund's regulations relative to prenatal and postnatal care. These conditions have been written into the law itself be­ cause of a series of decisions of the French Supreme Court holding that funds did not have the privilege of refusing benefit because of non-compliance with their rules directed at enforcing prenatal supervision.36 The patient is allowed free choice of any midwife or doctor. If she wishes to be hospitalized, the fund pays to the hospital the proportion of the forfait corresponding to the share 36 This was added in Article IX, sec. 7, of the revisionary dScret-loi of October 28, 1935. The reason for a controlling fee payable by the patient obviously is absent in maternity cases and the abolition of the ticket was in the nature of correcting a mistake in the original act. 36 The funds were directed to pay benefits despite the breach of rules in the following cases: Schreiber v. Caisse Departementale, Cour de Cassation Civile, Dalloz, Recueil Hebdomadaire, 1932, p. 473 (did not report pregnancy until two months before confine­ ment); Caisse Departementale v. Depuis, Cour de Cassation Civile, Dalloz, Rec. Heb., 1933, p. 283 (did not report pregnancy until three weeks before confinement); Caisse De­ partementale vs. Epoux Boyadjian, Cour de Cassation, Dalloz, Rec. Heb., 1935, p. 113 (did not report pregnancy until two months before confinement); VAfaire Premy, Cour de Cassation Civile, April 4,1934, Dalloz, Rec. Heb., 1935, Sommaires, p. 5 (did not report that she had ceased employed work six weeks before confinement); L'Affaire Epoux, Hardy, Cour de Cassation Civile, January 16, 1934, Dalloz, Rec. Heb., 1935, Sommaires, p. 5 (did not observe month consultation and certificate requirements demanded by rules for nursing benefits).

His Role in France

193

which the hospital provides of the total medical care and drugs involved in the case. If a pathological situation develops (i.e. disease as distin­ guished from abnormal parturition), ordinary medical bene­ fit becomes applicable and it is granted, if this occurs prior to confinement, for a full six months after childbirth, after which invalidity insurance applies as in any sickness case. Most of the departmental funds, as well as the larger mutualist funds, give special additional maternity benefits, such as reimbursement for several prenatal medical ex­ aminations or arrangement that the latter shall be made by a dispensary at no cost to the insured. For example, the de­ partmental fund in the Seine et Marne region, 37 in addition to the regular maternity

forfait

pays a special benefit of 40

francs ($2.64) for two prenatal medical examinations, with an added 20 francs ($1.32) for laboratory analyses in con­ nection with the first

medical examination, whenever the

insured cannot obtain such an analysis without cost from a regional dispensary of the Bureau of Social Hygiene. To encourage hospitalization, the fund also allows unreduced cash benefits for a maximum of twelve days in the hospital. All of the larger funds in France, and many of the unions of funds, now provide well organized prenatal and postnatal supervision, either by a directly created visiting nurse maternity service or by collaboration with existing services maintained by social hygiene dispensaries or by medical schools and nurses' training schools. The union of funds in Lyons 38 has contracted for such supervision with the Franco-American Foundation, an or­ ganization initiated during the World War by the Children's Bureau of the American Red Cross. This Foundation con­ tracts with obstetrical specialists who do prenatal examina3' See pp. αοι-2, n. 4, for discussion of iarifnites and pp. 239-41/. for discussion of maternity service of Nancy. 38 Started under the directorship of Dr. William Palmer Lucas, (San Francisco Pediatrician, who was Director of the Red Cross' Child Welfare Section in France).

194

The Health Insurance t>octor

tions and conduct baby clinics for all the funds in the region. The physicians are paid on a session basis,39 the session being a three-hour period. The session expense is divided among the insurance funds according to the number of their members who are examined. The insured pays nothing for these ex­ aminations. In addition to its share of the session expense, the insur­ ance fund pays 25 francs for each pregnancy case supervised, in return for which the Foundation guarantees an unlimited visiting nurse (infirmiere) service during the prenatal and postnatal periods. Infirmieres visit the cases in their charge as often as necessary, in some instances almost daily, without any extra cost to the funds.40 Duration of Benefits The ordinary right to reimbursement is limited (as is cash benefit) to six months for any one incapacitating illness.41 A relapse, after an apparent recovery, counts as the same ill­ ness if it occurs within two months. If it does not occur with­ in two months, it is counted as a new illness giving rise to a new six months' period of medical benefit, provided, how­ ever, that the apparent recovery is reported to the fund within eight days. Medical benefit, at a reduced rate of reimbursement if the fund wishes, is extended to at least two additional years when the insured continues to work while taking medical treatment. Similarly, if he is in need of special preventive medical treatment designed to forestall chronic illness or in­ validity, the insured is entitled to a contribution toward the 39

150 francs per three-hour session. districts supervised by this foundation are the only ones in the Rhone area in which the mortality rate does not exceed the birth rate. In 193J the infant mortality rate for the districts which it supervised was a.19 in contrast to a rate of 5.96 for the entire area. For the Nancy maternity service, see pp. 239^. and see p. 217, n. 3, in re certification of infirmieres. 41 The worker whose incapacity to work through illnes lasts over six months is en­ titled to invalidity insurance benefits, which provide, inter alia, medical benefit like that of health insurance during the first five years of invalidity. 40 The

His Role in France

195

cost of this additional "cure" for two years or more in ap­ propriate sanatoria or preventoria. How much will be con­ tributed in the case of each of the latter extended benefits is left to the individual tarij funds and to agreements which the funds or regional unions of funds make with the invalidity insurance organizations. It is recognized that preventive care is to the financial interest of the invalidity funds, and divi­ sion of the costs of such care between the two types of in­ surance funds is contemplated. Many of the larger health insurance funds and the unions of funds have taken advantage of the law's specific author­ ization to acquire, as well as to contract with, convalescent homes, open-air preventoria, and vacation camps {colonies de vacance) for children. The cost to the insured at these institutions is usually only 3 or 4 francs a day, the fund meet­ ing the remaining expense. These special "preventive" benefits have been directed chiefly at the tuberculosis prob­ lem, which is a very serious one in France. Medical Assistance Cases In the case of the insured who are unable to pay their share of medical benefit costs and consequently are eligible for aid from the Medical Assistance authorities, the arrange­ ments are as follows: The authorities pay the doctors directly at the fund's schedule rates after receiving from the fund the usual "reimbursement," i.e. 80 per cent of the rate set for the service rendered. This leaves the ticket moderateur share to the authorities. Eligibility for Medical Assistance aid is made dependent upon the insured person's observance of all the formalities and the rules imposed by his insurance fund in regard to medical benefit. Additional Benefits Additional benefits may be granted, with the permission and approval of the Minister of Labor, when a fund has

ig6

The Health Insurance Doctor

sufficient surplus to its credit. Until the latter half of 1935,42 the first surplus, except when used for grants-in-aid to pre­ ventive institutions, had to be devoted to the granting of nursing allowances and "milk bonuses" to the non-working wives of insured workers. The lion's share of surplus funds spent upon extra benefits has therefore of necessity been de­ voted to this extra maternity benefit. The amount of expenditures on additional benefits has gone down each successive year, as a natural corollary of the diminishing surplus of the funds. The decrease results from the fact that the cost of ordinary benefits has mounted with each year of the act's functioning, while, because of the se­ vere depression which has persisted in the '30's, the total received for health insurance from paid-in contributions has gone steadily down from 1,406,000,000 francs in 193a to 1,188,000,000 francs in 1935. In 1935 the expenditures for the first time exceeded the amount of the contributions paid in. The increase in benefit expenditures is caused exclusively by medical benefit costs. Cash benefits have been held down by the depression wage levels. Below is shown, in comparative tables,43 (1) the distribu­ tion of expenditures on the various services embraced in medical benefit for each of the first four years of French health insurance, (2) the distribution of medical benefit costs in 1935 among the three types of beneficiary (insured, spouse of insured, dependent children), and (3) the distribution of expenditures on additional benefits in 1935. The most conspicuous facts in the comparative tables44 are that (1) the smallest increase over the years is shown in re­ imbursement of medical fees paid to individual practitioners. This was only 11 per cent more in 1935 than that in 193042

The decret-loi of October 28, 1935, altered this. See sec. 30 of this enactment. The four tables were derived from France, Journal Officiel, 1937, Annexe, p. 197 and 1938, Annexe, pp. 1,594,1,59;, i,597>1,603. As only the hundreds-of-thousands digit is shown, this is a rough comparison. 44 As only the hundreds-of-thousands digit is shown, they present only a rough com­ parison as stated above. 43

His Role in France

197

DISTRIBUTION OF M E D I C A L B E N E F I T COSTS 1930-193; (in millions of francs and dollars) Oct. 1930 to Dec. 37,1931 Medical fees Surgical fees Drugs Dental fees Hospitals Dispensaries Reimbursement to Medical Assistance authorities

127.6 31.8 143.3 16.5 56-6 5-3

1932

($ 8.4) 130.7 ($ 2.1) 37.5 ($ 9-4) 159.8 ($ 1.0) 24.9 3-7) 99.5 (.$ -3) 10.2

4-9 ($ -3)

'935*

1934*

1933

($ 8.6) 139.1 ($ 9.1) 141-9 ($ 9-3) 156.8 ($10.3) ($ 2.4) 40.6 ($ 2.6) 50-5 ($ 3-3) 55-6 ($ 3-6) ($10.5) 170.3 ($11.2) 188.6 ($12.4) 225.9 ($14-9) ($ 1.6) 29.1 ($ 1.9) 35-2 ($ 2-3) 40.5 ($ 2.6) 6 -9) 110.3 ($ 7.2) 114.6 {$ 7.5) ($ 6.5) 104.7 1.0) ($ .6) 14-3 ($ -9) 15.1 ($ .9) 16.0

21.4 ($ 1.4)

27.0 ($ 1.7)

33.5 (? 2.2)

34.6 ($ 2.2)

*Lacks figure for a few unimportant funds. Totals correspond to 98 per cent. DISTRIBUTION OF M A T E R N I T Y B E N E F I T COSTS I 93°- I 935 (in millions of francs and dollars) Oct. 1930 to Dec. 31,1931 Medical fees Surgical fees Drugs Hospitals Dispensaries Reimbursement to Medical Assistance authorities

37-9 (I 2.5) 3-9 (.$ -2) 4 - 7 ( 1 -3) 4.8 ($ .3) .6 ($ .04)

•4 (.$ -o3)

1932

'933

35-5 ($ 2-3) 33-8 ($2-2) 3-5 » -2) 3-3 ($ -2) 5-o($ .3) 5-1 ($ -3) 9 - 3 ( 1 -6) 8-9(1 -5) 1.0 ($ .06) -8 (? -05)

1.4 ($ .09)

i.8»

-i)

'934*

'9J5*

34.5 ($ 2.2)

33.4 ($ 2.2)

3-6 ($ -2) 5-5 ($ -3) 10.8 ($ .7)

3-4 ($ -2) 5-4 ($ -3) i i . O ( $ .7) -8 « .05)

•9 (1 -05)

1.9 ($

.1)

2.4 ($

-i)

1931, in contrast, for instance, to a 57 per cent increase in drug benefit costs, a 74 per cent increase in surgical fee reimbursements, over 100 per cent increase in contributions to hospitalization costs, 150 per cent increase in dental costs, and over 300 per cent increase in the amount paid to dispensaries. (2) Almost as much was spent on drug benefit in 1935 as was paid toward medical and surgical fees and to dispensaries.

The Health Insurance Doctor

198

(NON-AGRICULTURALS) DISTRIBUTION OF COSTS OF M E D I C A L B E N E F I T T O INSURED, HIS SPOUSE A N D HIS C H I L D R E N January i , 1935, to March 31, 1936+ (in millions of francs and dollars)

Medical fees (office) Medical fees (house calls) Dispensaries Surgical fees Dental fees Drugs Hospitals Sanatoria Reimbursement to Medical Assistance authorities

Children

Spouse

Insured

14.4 16.5 2.7 13.2

71.4 0 4-7) 49-9 0 12.2 0 •8) 42.9 0 2.8) 38.7 0 M ) 172.5 (>11.3) 78-5 0 11.5 0 •7)

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

3-4) 1.0) •05)

6.2 0

•4)

9-7 52.4 15.8 .8

22.9 0 i-5)

•9) 1.0) .1) •8) .6)

Total

16.0 0 •i) 101.9 0 6.7) V- 6($ 1.8) 94.1 0 6.2) 5-o 0 •3) 20.0 0 1.3) 13-3 0 .8) 69.5 0 4.5) 2.1 0 •1) 50.7 0 3-3) 57-4 0 3-7) 282.4 0 1 8.6) 22.0 0 1.4) H6.4 0 7.6) 14.4 0 •9) 26.9 0 i-7) 14-7 0

43- 2 0 2.8)

•9)

1699 funds. EXPENDITURES OF FUNDS ADDITIONAL TO REQUIRED BENEFITS 1935 and 1936 1

1935 Grants to Hospitals and dispensaries Convalescent and rest homes Vacation colonies Maternal and child welfare projects Tuberculosis Sanitoria and Preventoria Anti-Cancer organizations Anti-Venereal organizations General social welfare organizations Additional Benefits Extra sickness benefits Extra maternity benefits

6,271,699 0 413,932) 2,601,911 0 171,726) 4,664,156 0 307,834)

2,785,316 0 183,830) 703,419 0 46,425) 2,191,841 0 144,661)

1,902,778 0

125,583)

2,395,9°5 0

158,129)

4,553.383 0 3,73° 0 167,606 0

300,523) 246) 11,061)

3,435,69o 0

17,640 0 261,626 0

226,755) 1,164) 17,267)

3»°54,954 0

201,626)

1,083,880

0

75,536)

373.663 (I 24,661) 0i ,6»,379)

24,414,842

138,204) 2 .°94.77 2 0 20,387,655 0 i ,345,585)

48,008,722 ($3,168,571)

34,357,944 02,333,556)

(3) More than 34,000,000 francs ($2,200,000) was paid for medical benefit to insured persons who could not pay their ticket moderateur, and who in consequence were provided for through the Public Assistance authorities.

THE "TICKET MODERATEUR"

A

S has been stated in discussing the tarijs de responsabilite, the ao per cent share of the tarif fees for medical service as to which the patient is not reimbursed is called the ticket moderateur, translated roughly as "controll­ ing fee." Like the "controlling fee" in Denmark,1 this ticket is explained as a means of restraint upon the insured who might be inclined to burden his insurance organization with the cost of unnecessary demands for medical attention and drugs. However, the similarity between the Danish con­ trolling fee and the French ticket moderateur is very limited in relation to medical bills. In Denmark the insured pays nothing to the doctor directly. The doctor is paid by the society, and the small amount of the control fee which the insured pays to the society is the total amount that the in­ sured is permitted to pay for his insured medical care. In France, in contrast, the insured is billed directly by the doctor and must pay him any amount which the latter deems suitable. The French ticket moderateur, which constitutes ao per cent of the society's tarif fee, may be, and often is, only a small fraction of the cost of medical service that the patient must actually absorb personally. For example, the Parisian worker sometimes must pay 50 francs2 for a single office consultation with his family doctor. The tarif de responsabilite fee for such service, however, is only 15 francs, of which ao per cent or 3 francs is the ticket 1 It will be remembered that Copenhagen societies charged for a "controlling fee" when the doctor was called on Sundays or holidays and that rural societies, which paid their doctors on a fee basis, imposed this charge quite generally. See pp. 111-12 supra. 2 This is as of the summer of 1936. Both medical charges and reimbursement rates now are altered but the principle illustrated, while less exaggerated than before, remains.

200

The Health Insurance Doctor

moderateur. In other words, the insured is entitled through his medical benefit to reimbursement of 12 francs from his society toward the cost of this consultation. He must himself bear the burden not only of the 3 francs (20 per cent of 15) represented by the ticket, but also the 35 francs which is the amount of the doctor's charge over and above the fee in the tarij. The doctors expect in all cases to charge the insured patient a substantial amount over and above the tarifs fee, as is indicated by the Medical Association's schedule of min­ imum fees, which the doctors pledge their organization they will not undercut. These minimum fees in the approved schedules published by the district medical associations are FEES IN TARIF DE RESPONSABILITE Union of Insurance Societies in Paris and Environs RURAL

URBAN

Actual Reim­ burse­ ment (fee minus 20%)

Minimum fees Medical Assn. schedule

Tarif

Office visit

25 fr.

15 fΓ­

12 fr.

12 fr.

House calls 9 a.m.—7 p.m. (Weekdays)

30 fr.

Ι S fr-

12 fr. +: fr. mileage

12 fr.

House calls 7 a.m.—9 a.m. 7 p.m.—10 p.m. (or emergency "at once"—weekdays)

40 fr.

15 fr.

12 fr. + 2 fr. mileage

House calls 7 a.m.—10 p.m. (Sundays)

60 fr.

22 fr. 50*

House calls 10 p.m.—7 a.m.

80 fr.

30 fr.

fee

Tarif

fee

Actual Reim­ burse­ ment (fee minus 20%)

Total to be paid by patient personally

Urban

Rural

9 fr. 60

13 fr·

15 fr. 40

9 fr. 60 plus mileagef

18 fr.

20 fr. 40

12 fr.

9 fr. 60 plus mileagef

28 fr.

30 fr. 40

18 fr. +2 fr. mileage

18 fr.

14 fr. 40 plus mileagef

42 fr.

45 fr. 60

24 fr. +2 fr. mileage

24 fr.

21 fr. 20 plus mileagef

56 fr.

58 fr. 80

*Paid only if called especially to attend on Sunday. Zf in the course of a case which the doctor is treating he makes a Sunday visit, only 15 fr. (99 cents) is paid. f75 centimes per kilometer in ordinary non-mountainous areas, I fr. 25 in mountainous areas.

His Role in France

201

all markedly higher than the fees in the corresponding tarij of the district insurance organizations. The differential is illustrated by the schedule3 effective in July 1936 in the Seine region centering in Paris. Assuming that not more than the minimum of the medical association schedule is charged (which apparently is often not the case), the worker is insured for only 60 per cent of his necessary expenditure for consulting his doctor at the office. The financial burden of the worker increases with the seriousness of and the unfortunate timing of his illness. Should he require a doctor's services on Sunday3 for example, it will cost him 60 francs, of which he can recover only 18 francs from his insurance fund. The 42 francs which he must meet himself is the equivalent of one day's wage of a semi­ skilled laborer in Paris. Should he have so unfortunate an experience as to require a doctor's services during the night, his insurance assistance will be proportionately smaller. At the minimum schedule rate, he must pay 80 francs. His re­ imbursement from the insurance society will be only 24 francs ($2.00). He must himself find about 50 francs. His insurance protection in the last two cases has shrunk to less than one-third of his risk. The rural worker in this region, in the face of the medical association schedule, is obviously far less completely insured than is his Parisian brother. A similar disparity shows itself between the reimburse­ ment fees paid by the tarij de responsabilite for maternity medical benefit and the minima of the medical association for obstetrical services. The latter are two to three times the reimbursement rates.4 3 The schedule is based upon the rates effective under the 1935 collective agreement. a'so> ibid., pp. See Year Book of the Medical Association of the Seine, 1935, PP104-11. (The reinsurance tarif issued by the central authorities in November 1934 permitted higher rates. See pp. 176-7 supra.) 4 In the spring of 1937 (Journal Officiel, 1937, p. 13,246), the first lTarif de Reas-

2θ2

The Health Insurance Doctor

The ticket moderateur is theoretically a small charge upon the patient, to make sure that he will not demand unneces­ sary medical service. But the real "ticket moderateur," in the sense of the patient's share in the cost, is not the charge represented by the amount of the ticket but is all too often an amount that is more than equal to, and sometimes more than double and treble, the sum which the worker can recover from his insurance organization. In brief, a very substantial part of even the general medical attention received by insured families in France is not on a health insurance basis in any sense of the word, but is still on a purely private-practice-fee basis. This has been described by a distinguished French com­ mentator, Etienne Antonelli,5 in commenting upon the 1930 amendments which introduced the tarif provisions, as a double control fee unjustified in principle and unfortunate in results: "The law of 1928 provided participation of the in­ sured in medical costs only for the purpose of checking abuse of the insurance privilege. . . . The present arrangement is really a scandalous and abusive interpretation of the ticket moderateur principle. . . . When the caisse sets up a reim­ bursement schedule which is less than the medical bill, that involves a primary ticket moderateur in itself. Why, then, apply a second ticket moderateur based upon the reimburse­ ment schedule?" surance covering maternity benefits under the revised act of October 1935 was issued as follows: Cities with more than 200,000 population Elsewhere Normal birth 425 325 Instrument birth 425 + 25 % to 50% 325 + 25% to 50% Twins (normal birth) 575 42; Twins (instrument birth) 575 + 25% to ζ°% 42< + 2ί% to 5°% 5Iitienne Antonelli (official reporter on the Social Insurance Law of 1930 for the French Chamber of Deputies), "Le Droit des Assurances Sociales," Tome I, Part II, Chap, vi, No. 6, published summary of a Course on Social Insurance and Social Wel­ fare given under the auspices of the French Minister of Labor for the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers.

His Role in France

203

The theory of the French health insurance scheme is that most of the insured are able to pay the excess of the cost of treatment over the part paid as medical benefit by the in­ surance fund, and that the Public Assistance authorities promptly and adequately supplement the insurance funds in case of workers who cannot finance this excess. The practical facts are often far removed from the theory. This is of special significance in the cases which call for prompt treatment in sanatoria or preventoria. This is a fact frequently lamented by the medical specialists who direct the tubercular-cure placements for the insured population. Time is, of course, of the essence in such placements, since successful combating of tuberculosis is linked with prompt provision of necessary care in the incipient stages of the disease. Yet in cases found to need sanatorium care, there is prompt placement as a rule only in the cases in which the insured can himself pay the part of the cost of treatment which is not met by medical benefit. This situation is well illustrated by a sampling study of placements for "cure" of tubercular insured persons sent from one of the Paris hospitals during 1934-1936 (.Hopital Salpetriere).6 Only 20 per cent of the adults whose condition required such cure were placed directly through the health insurance fund. The other 80 per cent could not raise the money to meet the supplementary costs and had to be placed through one or another of the Public Assistanceor Social Hy­ giene agencies. All of the fortunate 20 per cent who could pay their way were placed within a month. None of the assisted cases were placed until the second month. Approximately one-fourth of such cases failed to reach a sanatorium within three months, and 7 per cent were not institutionalized for more than five months after their fund's Department of Cures certified their immediate need of such treatment. 6 For complete details see Lenteurs et Difficulth des Placements en Station de Cure des Tuberculeux Adultes et Enjants, par Etienne Bernard et G. Dreyfeusj in Revue de la Tuberculose, July 1936, pp. 856-72.

2θ4

The HealthInsurance Doctor

A similar condition prevailed in the children's division. Placements when the insured paid his ticket, were made after an average delay of only three weeks; whereas the min­ imum delay in the other cases was two months and a third of these children did not reach an institution until more than five months after it was judged necessary. Both the French administrative authorities and the French doctors recognize that the actual ticket moderateur situation is an unfortunate one. They are in agreement that identity between the amounts set in the tarifs de responsabilite of the funds and the actual charges of the medical practitioners in treating the insured families would be a desirable situation. There, however, agreement usually ends. The medical asso­ ciations, for the most part,7 maintain that the situation should be adjusted exclusively by an increase in the tarij rates. The authorities, on the other hand, insist that the medical associations should (i) steadily lower their minimum fee schedules until they approximate the tarij rates, and (2) adhere to these minima when treating the insured. This insistence of the authorities took rather threatening form in at least one instance: In a circular announcing an in­ crease in the reinsurance schedule in the metropolitan areas, the Minister of Labor made the following statement in the fall of 1934:8 "Thanks to the means at the disposal of the funds, the latter can, by the interplay of reciprocal concessions, move toward the ideal solution of identity between their tarijs de responsabilite and the tarij syndical [i.e. the minimum fee schedule of the Medical Association]. . . . My represen­ tative sitting with the departmental commission will take an appeal to the Social Insurance Council . . . in the case of approval of any tarijs which raise the previous tarij rates 7 This is not the attitude of all medical men in France. See section on pp. IqSff. for discussion. 8 Adrien Marquet, Circulaire, issued August 8, 1934. Journal Officiel, 1934, p. 859.

His Role in France

205

without the corresponding concession by the doctors of lowering their association minimum fee schedule. I may add that, if lowered schedules are not in fact adopted by the ma­ jority of the medical profession, the annulling of the col­ lective agreements in conformity with Article IX of the model agreement published in the August 8, 1930, Journal Officiel will have to be considered." Such annulment would, of course, reduce the amount of reimbursement to the small flat-rate fee for all medical services which is operative in the absence of collective agreements. As the provision in the model agreement referred to in the ministerial circular states that agreements may be declared null and void in the case of serious shortcoming (manquement) established by the departmental social insurance au­ thorities, it may be doubted that the ministerial threat could have been carried out with legal propriety. The agreements, however, while running from year to year with automatic renewal, can be terminated any year on notice. Therefore, with the collaboration of the insurance funds and the social insurance authorities, renewal of agreements and approval of agreements could be prevented. This would of course bring pressure upon the medical group. This circular caused a furor among the organized medical men, who felt that it was a coercive attempt in violation of the fundamental principles of the French Medical Charter9 to tie the medical associations' fee schedules to that of the tarif de responsabilite. The profession, to quote from the French Medical Journal's account of this episode, "refused to accept this ultimatum." The administrative council of the Asso­ ciation10 took "the steps necessary to the obtaining of a modification or an official interpretation that in practical effect was a modification of the offending circular." 9

See pp. 173-4 supra. The French Medical Association is really a federation of associations, Grande Confederation des Syndicats Medicaux de la France. 10

2θ6

The Health Insurance Doctor

As a result the Minister of Labor wrote an official and con­ ciliatory letter11 to the Medical Association in which he stated, inter alia: "I think I should assure you that there could be no question of entertaining any idea that there is legal and obligatory relationship between the tarifs de responsabilite and the medical associations' minimum fee schedules. There can be no confusion on this score. A simple reading of the text indicates that these schedules are independent of each other. My circular should be interpreted as the expression of a desire to see the medical bodies contribute to the lowering of the cost of living by certain sacrifices through which the lower paid insured groups, as is equitable, would be the first to benefit." 11 See full acount of this episode and the text of the letter by Dr. Cibrie, General Secretary of the Federation of French Medical Associations, in the Revue Internationale de MSdecine Professionelle et Sociale, November 1934, pp. 112-14.

THE GROWTH OF THE DISPENSARY AND THE MUTUALIST "CLINIQUE"

T

HE gap between medical benefit and the actual costs of the services involved has brought a development which the medical profession has found less easily adjusted than the problem of a Minister of Labor and an offending circular. This development is the growth of "pay" dispensaries and private hospitals (cliniques) with out­ patient departments. These dispensaries are created and maintained not only by the Red Cross and similar agencies, but also by mutualist groups and certain Popular Front communes.1 The health insurance act specifically authorizes the funds to own and to maintain, as well as to contract with, clinics or dispensaries in which the insured may receive medical and surgical assistance. Through such institutions an increasing number of insured patients have been seeking medical care in lieu of going to private practitioners. The reasons for this development are apparently uncontroverted. The financial disadvantages to the insured worker of the French type of medical benefit have been so great as to press inevitably toward arrangements within the scheme to cut down the worker's risk of financial loss through med­ ical and hospital bills. The "pay" clinics, since they employ a full-time or part-time medical staff on salary or other similar remuneration basis, can offer a complete medical and surgical service for fees equal to or less than the amounts scheduled in the tarif. The insured who patronizes such a clinic runs no risk of unknown medical bills. Sometimes, notably in the case of 1 See

discussion, Villejuif dispensary, at pp. 242^.

2θ8

The Health Insurance Doctor

the mutualist ctiniques, he pays a small extra premium in return for which his fund absorbs his ticket moderateur share. Always, if a mutualist, he has the certainty that his burden will be at most merely the ticket moderateur amount, i.e. 20 per cent of his fund's tarij fee. Some of the Popular Front communes, moreover, have set up municipal dispensaries which do away with the ticket moderateur altogether and pro­ vide gratuitous medical service at the dispensary for the whole insured population. This dispensary development has been bitterly resented by the organized medical profession in France, on the score that it cuts radically into the office practice of private physicians and creates a relation between doctor and patient wholly inimical to the principles of the French Medical Charter. Various local medical associations have continu­ ously conducted a vigorous drive against the physicians who affiliated themselves with the "pay" dispensaries, even to the point of expelling certain distinguished members who refused to sever their salaried connections with offending clinics. Their local efforts proving ineffectual, the regional organizations finally carried their complaints to the Na­ tional Federation of Medical Associations. This organiza­ tion, in response, created a "Dispensaires" committee,2 which, in the spring of 1936, formulated an official program of suppression and control to be followed by the Administra­ tive Council of the Federation in a nationwide war upon the dispensary movement. This program, insofar as it relates to dispensaries giving treatment and not mere diagnosis, rests upon the use of official collective pressure upon the public authorities and group pressure upon dispensary doctors, to achieve the following results: i. Philanthropic and Municipal Dispensaries. Only gra­ tuitous treatment to be given and only for indigents, in any dispensaries which are either partly or entirely endowed by 2 For detailed report of this committee, see the July 1936 issue of Le Medecin de France.

His Role in France

209

public or private philanthropic subsidies. (Main offender, the Red Cross.) 2. Mutualist Dispensaries. Only gratuitous treatment and only for bona fide insured members of the parent mutualist organization. 3. All dispensaries taking pay patients to be treated as ordinary commercial ventures to be frowned upon but ac­ cepted, provided that (1) they are licensed as medical offices, and (2) their charges are at least equal to the Medical Asso­ ciation's minimum fee schedule. Among the "philanthropic" dispensaries, the Red Cross was marked as the first object of concerted attack. It was announced further, that collaboration with mutualist dis­ pensaries was prohibited to all Association members until these dispensaries should have adjusted their arrangements to meet Medical Association demands. Since the medical profession has insisted on absolutely free choice of medical practitioner by the insured patient, it can­ not direct its anti-dispensary campaign against the insured's right to patronize any clinic in which he may choose to be treated. To deny the insured the right to go to a clinic, if so desired, would be, of course, a violation of the privilege of free choice in regard to medical services, which the profession itself vehemently and successfully demanded should be written into the law. The medical arrangements incorporated in the French Act were, as has been explained, a result of the insistence of the medical profession that the insured patient should freely choose his doctor and pay him whatever the latter demanded, without any regulation and control of the physician's charges or his conduct of the case. This "freedom" achieved by the French profession is in marked contrast to the regulated arrangements under which the British and Danish doctors serve insured patients. The French health insurance arrange­ ments were chosen by the profession in the interest, it was declared, of conserving to the patient and to the medical

210

The Health Insurance Doctor

profession the traditional doctor-patient relationships. Para­ doxically, however, it is only in France, and not in Denmark and Britain, that the insured workers in growing numbers receive their medical care from institutions which employ their medical staff on terms of salary or other fixed remunera­ tion. In Denmark and in Britain the dispensary as a medium of insured medical care is almost nonexistent. Free choice of individual practitioner and the doctor-patient relationship of private practice tradition have been preserved by the health insurance arrangements of both Denmark and Britain. En­ croachment upon this relationship, however, has been promoted by the unregulated "freedom" of the medical profession in the health insurance scheme of France.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE FRENCH HEALTH INSURANCE DOCTOR

I

T has already been explained that in the French health insurance scheme, the doctor who attends insured patients is not required by law to have direct contractual relation­ ship with either the insurance funds or the government. It has also been explained, however, that much more liberal reimbursement is permitted the insured on his medical bills when the medical association enters into collective agree­ ments with the insurance funds; that this more liberal re­ imbursement is decidedly in the financial interests of the medical profession; and that such collective agreements are almost universal. The basic provisions of all medical association contracts must follow the official "model agreement" issued by the Ministry of Labor. Its terms were drawn up in the fall of 19301 by a committee of the Conseil Superieur in which rep­ resentatives of the organized profession participated. These terms reiterate the free-choice-of-doctor principle, which is incorporated in the Social Insurance Act itself, and while they provide that the doctor's bill shall be arranged directly between doctor and patient,2 they impose on the practitioners certain health insurance duties which are essential to the functioning of the scheme. In consequence, most of the doctors who attend health insurance patients have certain contractual obligations to the insurance fund with respect to their insured clientele, and these obligations are identical with those of the British and the Danish practitioner in their health insurance practice. 1 Journal 2 See

Officiel, 1930, pp. 9,161-2. pp. 179-80 supra for discussion of agreements that attempted to change this.

212

The Health Insurance Doctor

Thus the doctor in Denmark, like health insurance doctors in all other countries, must certify his patient's incapacity for work, in order that cash benefit may be applied for. Similarly, he must certify the date at which the patient will be fit for work again, for the guidance of the fund in ter­ minating cash benefit. If the attending practitioner wishes consultation or believes that the patient needs a specialist's services or an operation, the doctor must furnish a signed statement to that effect on official letterhead paper. In ad­ dition, he must state on the first insurance report slip (jeuille de maladie) the probable duration of the illness. He is further obliged to aid the fund in its supervisory services by noting on the report slip his medical instructions to the patient relative to exercise, staying in bed, going outdoors, etc. He is obliged to record accurately, by use of symbols agreed upon, the bill paid (or due) for each item of service he renders, so as to facilitate the reimbursement to which the insured is entitled under medical benefit. If his charges are less than the tarif rate for the medical service in question, he must state the amount of the actual bill. If he has served gratuitously, he must record that fact. He must sign only for bills related to services which he has given individually, and he must use, in furnishing all data for which he is responsible, the official insurance report slips or Jeuilles with which the fund provides the patient. In prescribing for an insured patient, he is required to write each prescription on a separate letterhead slip, on which must be placed the letters "A.S." ("Assurances Sociales," signifying it is a health insurance case), followed by the in­ sured's social insurance number. If he deems the patient in need of "auxiliary services," such as massage or medicinal baths, he must give him (again on his own letterhead slips) an order explicitly stating the exact number and nature of the requested services. Finally, he must accept the disci­ plinary machinery of the medical association (the Conseil de Famille) as an agency of supervisory control over the per-

His Role in France

213

formance of his professional duties with respect to insured patients. He must permit the insurance funds the right to be represented in the disciplinary sessions held by that Conseil. The medical associations themselves are bound to use the same nomenclature in their minimum fee schedules as is used by the funds in their tarifs de responsabilite. They are pledged to carry out conscientiously their power of disciplinary con­ trol over the health insurance doctors and to finance this control. All collective contracts made by the medical association and the funds must be made binding for the period of a year, with automatic renewal in absence of a month's notice of termination. The official decrefi which sets up the social insurance administrative framework, extends the binding effect of these collective agreements beyond the membership of the con­ tracting medical associations, by ruling specifically, that "Every doctor who fills out the feuilles de maladie for use by an insured patient is deemed to have accepted the collective agreement with the insurance funds which is entered into by the medical association of the region." It remains to be emphasized that, as before remarked, the completely free choice of doctor which the law allows the patient, requires that some place to be made for the doctor who will not cooperate in any way with the health insurance scheme. This occasional non-organization doctor, by refusing even to use the insurance report slips, evades any respon­ sibility under the collective medical agreement of his district. Reimbursement of his bills is permitted on a forfait basis, i.e. a small flat-rate sum for each item of medical service, what­ ever its character. The insured can obtain this by presenting receipted medical bills to his fund. The economic disadvantages inherent in this forfait ar­ rangement have been discussed in the last section in connec3

Journal Officiel, 1936, p. 3,235. (Title II, Article io, sec. 1 of the decree.)

214

The Health Insurance Doctor

tion with the tarifs de responsabilite. They are sufficiently pronounced to prevent the number of nonconformists from becoming of any importance. In the vast majority of cases, the doctor who renders medical services to the insured families in France, through voluntary acceptance of the responsibilities imposed in medical collective agreements, fur­ nishes his patient with the standardized data which his fund requires on applications for both cash and medical benefit. In brief, in every respect except that of remuneration, the French health insurance doctor by a roundabout route ar­ rives at the same regulated position of responsibility to the health insurance scheme as that occupied by the health in­ surance doctor in other countries. Even as to remuneration he is not entirely unaffected by official regulations. Some of his remuneration comes from the fund, and one of the factors which affects the amount which he can hope to collect from his patient is the tarif of the fund. Attitude cToward Certification Responsibilities The French health insurance doctor is, as we have seen, for all practical purposes in the same position in regard to the certification duties as are the health insurance doctors of other countries. The duty seems to be accepted without question by the French profession, as in the case of British and Danish health insurance practitioners, as the normal responsibility of an attending physician. The patient must have rest and food; for these he needs his cash benefit; there­ fore his medical practitioner "certifies" his incapacity for work. Repeated questioning in various parts of France elicited only surprise that objection to the certification duty should be expected. If the obligation is an unduly annoying one, the doctors say nothing of it, and as the French medical journals are open to discussion of the irritating aspects of health insurance, the lack of comment about certification duties seems fair evidence that no certification "problem" exists.

"CONTROLE MEDICAL" HE doctor's "free" position under the French health insurance scheme and the fact that medical benefit consists in cash "reimbursements" to the insured have promoted suspicion on the part of the funds of collusion between doctor and patient for the presentation of fictitious bills and unjustified cash-benefit disability claims. This sus­ picion has been aggravated by the lack of direct disciplinary control over the doctor by governmental agencies. The added circumstance that the French system contemplates payment on a fee basis for each medical service has created almost frantic concern on the part of the health insurance funds lest the costs of medical benefit become excessive through unnecessary medical visitation and prescription. To protect their exchequers from imposition, most of the larger funds, soon after the institution of health insurance, or­ ganized a controle medical service, i.e. an administrative organization for detecting fraudulent claims of medical and cash benefit. In the larger funds this organization from the beginning has included doctors, hospital infirmieres (trained nurses), and visiting infirmieres (combined district nursemedical social service workers), as well as lay inspectors or